Space Marines: The Plan

The Space marines were my first ever army for 40k and for that reason, they have a soft spot in my hobby heart. Just like a lot of people I guess! The difference for me is the chapter I chose. Being fourteen when I began collecting, I wasn't going to develop a colour scheme, background and icon for a chapter I made myself. So I picked one... solely on the colours I liked the most! Those colours were the red and black of the Iron Lords. I've played with, and added to the army, on and off ever since. After forays into the hive mind and more recently, the Eye of Terror, I will now return to my loyal marines

The plan for my Space marines army is a simple one: collect models for their fluff value. I wont be building a power-gaming army, rather, I will build one around the background for my army. Every model will be converted and every character, sergeant, veteran etc. will be named. So, on with the show!

COLOUR SCHEME

The colour scheme is the one that I have used since I began playing warhammer: the Iron lords

image from warhammer 40k wiki originally from the Space Marines codex 5th edition

The red and black caught my eye when I opened the codex, and while the shades have changed over the years, the scheme has not. As for other colours, the shoulder trim follows the standard codex Astartes colours, the Aquila is gold and the helmet stripe is... I don't know. Insignium Astartes says it is the same as the shoulder trim, but it clearly isn't on this guy and the only painted Iron Lord in the codex is a terminator (company colour: silver) and he has a gold stripe. So I'm going with gold. I'm going to paint the fourth company and the gold looks better than the green, plus it adds cohesion to the force if I add units from other companies for example, veterans.

BASING

The basing on these guys is going to be a different idea to the Tau: the black and red are very dark and I wanted a strong contrast to this, to make them stand out on the tabletop. For that reason, I am going to base them using modelling snow, to make them stand out more. some will even be on resin bases with snow added.

EXTRAS

In terms of a list, I'm waiting until a new Space Marine codex is released to make one up and until then, I will paint up old models that I like and maybe buy up a tactical squad to paint. Like I said, every model will be converted so I'll probably use older marks of armour to individualise each marine.

I am going to magnetise some models but this isn't to swap out weapons like the Tau, rather, it is for ease of transport. For example, a Techmarine's servo harness could be magnetised to make the model fit in the slots given in a case. This is about the extent of that though as the models will have backgrounds, with "preferred" load outs so they will always have the same weapons.