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High Tech Marines

CommanderXenock

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mario Battle-Brother

mario

Posted
Posted

Some ideas:

  • Use no metals (and no NMM). On the one hand you have less bling bling on your army and that shows that they are mora about efficiency than about decoration (less religious fees, more professional) and on the other hand it looks more like the weapons and equipment is based on high tech polymers and other fancy high tech materials.
  • Remove all decorations. This removes the fanatical/religious feel. So no back banners, loin cloths, tabards, and similar stuff and no crosses or candles. That gives your army a more streamlined and identical mass produced feel.
  • No rivets and if you have these armour frames (like chaos has, and like you can see on a space marine shoulder pad) then remove all these little triangles that the chaos ones have. And don't use the bigger ones or any that look too much like old plate armour (see the special ones for the company champion). That makes the armour of your marines look like the armour plates are wither glued from the inside or they have some special mechanism to be opened (more high tech).
  • Don't use any capes or fur pelts, wolf tails or other lucky trinkets. Use just the grenades, scanners and other high tech decoration, and a few of the pouches.
  • You could add antennas to the backpacks or search lights. Anything that makes these look more useful. Probably a little additional compartment that has a little cross on it (med kit) or something that indicates an repair kit.
  • Paint your marines in camouflage or at least use an armour colour that's not too extreme. One main tip is to add at least 50% codex grey to any colour that you want to use (if the base colour is very saturated). That will give you a colour that doesn't shout "kill me". And you can add a bit of the colour complementary colour lessed the saturation even more (complements are yellow and purple, orange and blue, red and green)
  • Something that you could try: Don't use any normal backpacks. If you want to use anything then that should be jump packs, or a medi-pack (apothecary) or some servo-harness thingy for the techmarine.
  • The same goes for tanks and dreadnoughts, bikes, anything.
  • You could remove all chest eagles. That removes another decoration from the armour but the very bland look could be something that you don't want. At least remove all skulls from the chest parts. If I remember correctly then there is the blank breast armour with the skull and the winged skull in the basic tactical sprue but I don't know if or how that changed with the new tactical squad packs.
  • Don't use heads without a helmet and don't use the old school helmets. Stick with the Mk. 6 and Mk. 7 helmets. You could add little antennas, searchlights, or targerters to the helmets.
  • And using high collars without any decoration on them give the illusion of more protection for critical areas. That should give your marines a better equiped look.
  • For swords and similar weapons try to use modern looking weapons. Anything long should probably have just one sharp edge (like katana). And use a simple guard that doesn't look too much like a katana's guard. Or just leave it off (that should work even though traditional katanas sometimes didn't have a guard). That gives your weapons a look that is not rooted too much in western or eastern tradition. And that means that you should stay away from any other too cultural influence. Simple and streamlined should be the keywords for anything in your army.
  • Convert many marines to crouching positions or anything that doesn't make them look like they are standing somehow funny (normal tactical squad) or running like some berserkers (assault squads). Get some inspiration from the Forgeworld Elysians or cadian IG in general. That's why I said that you could try to leave the backpacks off. Some of these position look bad and strangely proportioned if the marine has a backpack.
  • You could add specialist marines in each squad (communications operator, med guy, tech guy, ammo guy for special or heavy weapon, navigator/map guy). Give the guys some targeters and aiming poses.
  • Scratches, battle damage, dirt, and dust are always a nice reference to modern military. And todays military is always somehow associated with high tech toys.
  • All the stuff from above goes for any other weapons too. Nodecoration on bolters, not shiny colours, and so on. Remove the rivets and winged skull or watever decoration you find.
  • The ony other decoration that could work are warning sings like some radioactive, biohazard sings, or writing like CAUTION or whatever. Barph had something like that on his emperors champion's bolt pistol (for his Aquamarines). Probably using chevrons, either like in military ranks or like warning stripes could work too but not everywhere.
  • From the same champion: Arm mounted ranged weapons look more high tech.

That's all for now.

T14 Venerable Brother

T14

Posted
Posted

High-tech marines or High Tech-marines??? (don't get me started on ideas for the latter :lol: )

 

It depends on what you mean by high-tech.

 

For me there is a strong association between the concept of technology and the imagery of the industrial revolution (from a perspective of technology as the antithesis to nature, that is) I know that this may not be high-tech enough for some people, but if we follow the design look of what RL society deems a "high-tech" look today, you are getting into TAU territory IMHO.

 

The Industrial cue makes me associate to mass production and function over form. So for me I would try to make the marines look, "raw", unpolished, no nonsense, and with minimal customization among the rank and file.

I like many of the suggestions given in this thread already, but Pick just a handful of visual cues and use these throughout as your theme.

 

If it was me in your shoes, I'd choose the following:

- No organic ornamentation/acessories at all

- Rivets on all shoulder pad rims

- Techy weapons: Scout biker drum mag bolters, lots of plasma tech, Auspexes everywhere

- Use the more techy-looking vehicles, like Land Raiders and Land Speeders

 

You may also consider taking the full jump and become an Iron Hands general :wink:

 

Cheers

-t14

FuriousFerret Veteran

FuriousFerret

Posted
Posted

Mario and Templar14,

 

those are excellent suggestions, and personally I already practice several of Mario's suggestions, namely the muted color scheme, the no-lucky-charms, etc. Templar14's mention of Iron Hands is also very valid - Iron Hands bitz are excellent for that non-religious, non-robe-wearing, non-blinged space marine army. I know because that's what I do.

 

Mario wrote:

Remove all decorations. This removes the fanatical/religious feel. So no back banners, loin cloths, tabards, and similar stuff and no crosses or candles [...]Don't use any capes or fur pelts, wolf tails or other lucky trinkets. Use just the grenades, scanners and other high tech decoration, and a few of the pouches. [...] use an armour colour that's not too extreme. One main tip is to add at least 50% codex grey to any colour that you want to use (if the base colour is very saturated). That will give you a colour that doesn't shout "kill me". [...] at least remove all skulls from the chest parts [...] Don't use heads without a helmet and don't use the old school helmets. Stick with the Mk. 6 and Mk. 7 helmets. You could add little antennas, searchlights, or targerters to the helmets. [...] And using high collars without any decoration on them give the illusion of more protection for critical areas.

 

Check! I do all these things, and they work really well. One way to get some variety is to take the chest plate in the BT upgrade pack, the one with the raised collar and a big templar cross in the Aquila, and simply file the entire aquila off. You get a raised collar and a blank chest plate. Perfect. The BT upgrade is an unlikely but pretty good source of no-bling equipment for your Marines. The Power Fists, for instance, feature a Templar cross centered on a skull. Chains wrap around the fist. Simply file off the cross, and you have a nasty power fist wrapped in chains anchored to a skull. Looks more industrial than BT-bling. Same goes for the BT power axes. Simply remove the ubiquitous cross, and you have a very brutal axe chained to the wielder's hand. I could go on.

 

Here's one more idea: if you're playing with the Trust your Battle Brothers trait, modify some of your marines' backpacks so that they will accept a holstered close combat weapon. I bought the archive close combat weapon sprue off the GW website as well as some current back packs. I really want my Marines to have those CCWs provided by the TYBB trait, but I don't want them all standing around in naff poses with a bolter in one hand and a chainsword in the other (hello Space Wolves! :D ) So here's what I'm going to do (sorry, no pics yet):

 

1) cut off the bulb vent on one side of the back pack. Since most marines are right handed, it would seem, remove the bulb behind his left arm. Also remove the flat vents near the bottom of the pack.

 

2) now that the pack is smooth in one side, glue on your weapon of choice. Make it so that when the marine is viewed from the front the handle of the weapon juts out above his shoulder plate. EASY ACCESS, just reach up and pull out your weapon. This works with chain swords, power swords, and power axes (remove the power nodes on the blades to make sure your opponent won't think they're power weapons if they're not).

 

3) GS some sort of holding mechanism. like this /-/. Imagine it's a magnetic grip-release.

 

4) Optional: affix the bulb vent below the other bulb vent, so that there are two on one side of the pack, while the other side holds a weapon. If you're really good you could add some GS vents between the CCW and the pack proper, to replace those square vents you shaved off.

 

EDIT: just correcting a few points

  • 1 year later...

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