Ultramarines Upgrades & Combat Patrol

[Crimson Longinus]

3 hours ago, Shinespider said:

Sculpted shoulders are overrated - an upgrade sprue should have one or two for characters and leave the rest to decals.  

 

Yeah, definitely. Decals look better and if you're doing a successor chapter half of the sprue is wasted. I have a ton of Raven Guard shoulder pads somewhere as I wanted the bird skulls and feathers. 

[HeadlessCross]

8 hours ago, Crimson Longinus said:

I'm not exactly sure what people were expecting. Like sure, the upgrade sprue is bland and boring, but it is the Ultramarines, being bland and boring is their defining feature.

Ultramarines get stuff done and are only boring to the people that create edgy fanfic Chapters that read the same as Space Wolves fluff. 

[Robbienw]

Ultras love a bit of bling and laurels, hardly boring in terms of appearance.  Their characters and veterans are resplendent!

[beefeb]

there used to be an A4 size decal sheet for the Ultramarines.....was far far superior to this.  They never renewed it, just giving us lesser decals on smaller sheets.  Theres plenty of places to find much better decals at a fraction of GW cost.  Just go to Ultramarine facebook groups and look around and youll see some.  I wont link it as it will likely violate business rules, but there are sheets available which give company by company decals of insane quality.  When you look at what these other guys produce, you realise that while the GW decals may be individually of decent quality, the variety and scope they sell is so intentionally limited.

 

Edited October 1 by beefeb

[Mmmmm Napalm]

absolutely hate how the new upgrade kit pauldrons just lazily slap an unmodified chapter icon onto a plain pauldron; thats what trasnfers are for. if you're gonna have sculpted pauldrons, have em be varied and interesting like the old one. most of the pauldrons included here are pointless. crossed out bits are what i thought was pointless or uninspired. ! is what i thought warranted being in an upgrade kit you pay for. I was bieng nice so i didnt cross out the sgt pauldrons featuring a skull on the U. even then, most of teh space for pauldrons is wasted by these uninspired, plain chapter icons. Do Aggressors, H. Intercessors and Bladeguard really warrant a whole set of pauldrons dedicated to each of them? i get bladeguard given their popularity but the other two? Just because their trim format is different? And then the heads. why not include a couple more helmets instead of just plain marine faces? the laurel guy is good, but the others dont warrant a place in a *chapter specific* upgrade.

i was irritated by this when the DA one was shown, then the BA was the same. Im honestly quite happy BT got theirs before the new template for upgrades started to be more finalized. we may have missed out on Termie bits but at least we got relics and such, instead of *phobos pauldrons*.

[Mogger351]

4 hours ago, Mmmmm Napalm said:

absolutely hate how the new upgrade kit pauldrons just lazily slap an unmodified chapter icon onto a plain pauldron; thats what trasnfers are for. if you're gonna have sculpted pauldrons, have em be varied and interesting like the old one. most of the pauldrons included here are pointless. crossed out bits are what i thought was pointless or uninspired. ! is what i thought warranted being in an upgrade kit you pay for. I was bieng nice so i didnt cross out the sgt pauldrons featuring a skull on the U. even then, most of teh space for pauldrons is wasted by these uninspired, plain chapter icons. Do Aggressors, H. Intercessors and Bladeguard really warrant a whole set of pauldrons dedicated to each of them? i get bladeguard given their popularity but the other two? Just because their trim format is different? And then the heads. why not include a couple more helmets instead of just plain marine faces? the laurel guy is good, but the others dont warrant a place in a *chapter specific* upgrade.

i was irritated by this when the DA one was shown, then the BA was the same. Im honestly quite happy BT got theirs before the new template for upgrades started to be more finalized. we may have missed out on Termie bits but at least we got relics and such, instead of *phobos pauldrons*.

I hate using transfers, these products are a bigger win imo, even if dull.

[SvenIronhand]

I don't know why people in this thread are so gung-ho for transfers. Even with the specialized products you need to make them 'work', the results don't really look good. I'd rather have sculpted detail on upgrade kits or freehand it. 

[Evil Eye]

50 minutes ago, SvenIronhand said:

I don't know why people in this thread are so gung-ho for transfers. Even with the specialized products you need to make them 'work', the results don't really look good. I'd rather have sculpted detail on upgrade kits or freehand it. 

Honestly even without stuff like Micro Sol/Set (which are good) transfers usually look fine unless you completely mess them up. The waterslide decals GW uses are pretty decent too.

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

On 9/29/2025 at 5:24 PM, Wispy said:

How DARE they give the Ultramarines a new upgrade sprue and not the Space Wolves (who need one to go with our 2 batteline kits no one else has), the injustice

True. Not good enough for SW. Our furries need bushy tails.

[Marshal Reinhard]

There's more usage for transfers than just the shoulder pad chapter symbol

[Spagunk]

So once upon a time, when Duncan was with GW, they had a real good tip to put down gloss varnish before you put a transfer on. Then when dried you can matte varnish the area to get things to look the same.

It's a good tip and your Micro Sol/Set should work well for that method.

[Crimson Longinus]

1 hour ago, SvenIronhand said:

I don't know why people in this thread are so gung-ho for transfers. Even with the specialized products you need to make them 'work', the results don't really look good. I'd rather have sculpted detail on upgrade kits or freehand it. 

 

Transfers will look good. They actually look like the symbol was painted on the armour, like they are in most of the art. The marines in the art rarely have chunky sculpted chapter symbols and when they do they're actually three dimensional and ornamented rather than just flat raised areas. 

[Marshal Reinhard]

5 minutes ago, Crimson Longinus said:

they're actually three dimensional and ornamented rather than just flat raised areas. 

Like the BA winged droplets?

[Crimson Longinus]

43 minutes ago, Marshal Reinhard said:

Like the BA winged droplets?

 

Yes, those make sense as sculpted details. Flat ultra symbols really don't.

[Rhavien]

It also irks me that GW ist including terminator sergeant powerswords. It's the same for BA, don't know about the other chapters. Finally, after so many years they let us equip the sergeant with a power fist and then they give us iconography on a sword . Booo GW, booo!  

Also I've to agree that I think plain shoulder pads with just the sculpted symbol are a waste of space. Make them a separate kit if there's enough demand, but you'll end with dozens of upgrade sprues if you want to have enough pads for a whole army or bigger collection. It just doesn't add up.

[crimsondave]

I use tons of decals on my models, but I still prefer the molded pads.  I bought tons over the years.  Really the only chapter symbols I use decals for are on push fit models I don’t feel like performing surgery on to get the blank pad off of.  And that’s with the Dark Angles symbol.  The one and only Ultramarine I ever painted was Titus and getting that toilet seat to lay flat definitely required Microsol and some patience.

[Crimson Longinus]

41 minutes ago, Rhavien said:

It also irks me that GW ist including terminator sergeant powerswords. It's the same for BA, don't know about the other chapters. Finally, after so many years they let us equip the sergeant with a power fist and then they give us iconography on a sword . Booo GW, booo!  

 

I mean this is a bigger issue caused by removal of points. A lot of options are just flat out bad, and tactically never worth taking. Power swords are a prime example, the fist is just better. It is annoying, as swords look nice and there are many different sculpts to choose from. And I like power fists, but it is boring that every character and squad leader is equipped with one. If there are no points, they should do better job with balancing the options. Like perhaps swords should have "precision" to signify their role as duelling weapons and give them some sort of niche over the fists. 

[Orange Knight]

I agree the regular power sword is not balanced appropriately in a game where there are generally no wargear points.

 

If they changed it to a Master Crafter power sword then we'd have a more interesting choice to make, especially if they adjust the number of attacks allocated to different weapons.

Bladeguard Veterans work perfectly well with their swords.

 

I actually don't particularly care for GW bringing granular points back as the armies are getting bigger and bigger and the units are more and more numerous.

I've seen lists with 25 individual units, all with granular wargear.

 

Ideally they balance the wargear efficacy. 

[Evil Eye]

52 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

I actually don't particularly care for GW bringing granular points back as the armies are getting bigger and bigger and the units are more and more numerous.

 

Then maybe GW should rein the scope creep in rather than mangling the rules to accommodate it?#

 

Re: decals vs sculpted shoulders, I seem to recall that "3D" decals are a thing; waterslides with raised, flexible details printed on somehow. That could actually be a good compromise; no more difficult to apply than any other decal assuming the raised details aren't obnoxiously large and thick, but far, FAR more versatile than sculpted pads. Theoretically you could ditch the pads altogether, include a sheet of raised decals that can conform to any shoulder pad instead, and use the extra sprue space to include more cool stuff; weapons, trinkets, or heck, why not go nuts and throw in sculpted banners of each Company Standard to add to Ancients?

[Rhavien]

2 hours ago, Crimson Longinus said:

 

I mean this is a bigger issue caused by removal of points. A lot of options are just flat out bad, and tactically never worth taking. Power swords are a prime example, the fist is just better. It is annoying, as swords look nice and there are many different sculpts to choose from. And I like power fists, but it is boring that every character and squad leader is equipped with one. If there are no points, they should do better job with balancing the options. Like perhaps swords should have "precision" to signify their role as duelling weapons and give them some sort of niche over the fists. 

Personally I don't mind the removal of points. In ye olde days it was the other way around. Noone bought upgrades for a tactical, devastator and so on sergeant. They should balance the options like precision for the swords. Sounds good! 

But especially for termis I welcome the homogeneity of all fists in the squad. Also I think the BA swords are pretty lame with their single blood drop but the rest is identical. The UM swords are IMHO actually a lot better with their unique design.

[DemonGSides]

Yeah BA uses to have cool falchion and sabre adjacent weaponry that has entirely disappeared with the update. Huge bummer; encarmine blades used to be cool and bespoke instead of slightly longer swords. 

[Orion]

Yeah I'm on the side of pauldrons being kind of a waste of upgrade sprue. 
Fancy ones look good on sergeants painted gold or something for variety, but putting generic moulded chapter pads on every guy looks straight up worse than transfers.

 

The transfer look matches all the art better, and is just generally more in scale and realistic. 

[SvenIronhand]

10 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

Then maybe GW should rein the scope creep in rather than mangling the rules to accommodate it?#

 

Re: decals vs sculpted shoulders, I seem to recall that "3D" decals are a thing; waterslides with raised, flexible details printed on somehow. That could actually be a good compromise; no more difficult to apply than any other decal assuming the raised details aren't obnoxiously large and thick, but far, FAR more versatile than sculpted pads. Theoretically you could ditch the pads altogether, include a sheet of raised decals that can conform to any shoulder pad instead, and use the extra sprue space to include more cool stuff; weapons, trinkets, or heck, why not go nuts and throw in sculpted banners of each Company Standard to add to Ancients?

My kingdom for a ‘informative’ rating.