A little break from chaos

On the sixteenth of May, Games Workshop celebrated the birthday of the Space Marine figure. It was first released thirty years ago this year, and a special figure was made as a limited edition to be sold just this weekend. I bought one, and it will be one of the first minis to be built when I start with my Space Marines again. I already see it on sale at Ebay and Finn for three times the price it was sold for, but since there is a rules restriction on having more than one in your army, I see no point in getting more even though it looked cool.

The Games Workshop store in Oslo had a special guest throughout the weekend, as Brother Maximus of the Ultramarines had arrived to take part in the celebrations...

Throughout the day there was an event where you should paint up a Space Marine to look like an entirely new chapter. At the end of the day the staff picked a winner. There was no real price, but the winning colourscheme would be used on a small army of in-store figures painted up by the staff. I entered a red and silver scheme, but it did not win. The winner was a sort of weird looking yellow and pink, and I look forward to see what the staff can get out of that scheme.

I wanted to sit and paint for a long period of the day, but I didn't feel it would be right to sit and paint Age of Sigmar Chaos figures on such a day. So I brought with me some Space Marines that needed a re-paint and also my Imperial Guard unit with two females in it. Here is a little pic of them...

The Space Marines in the background were originally painted up as veterans with white helmets and white trim on their shoulderguards. Then some time back I did a figure count and found I had more than a hundred minis that needed to be First company figures I believe I have about seventy terminators, and then some Sternguard and Vanguard veterans too, so I decided to make these miniatures in to second company instead. That means blue helmets and yellow trim. Most of the Second company will be assembled using Dark Angels Veterans models, as I really love their look. And by doing this, I can also field a Dark Angel successor chapter using the Dark Angels rules and these minis if this should prove helpful in a game sometime.
The way I have planned it, the different companies in the Gatekeepers chapter are specialists in fighting different foes. All companies can face all foes, but if the foe is known before troops are sent to help, then the Chapter Master will try and send troops from the company that is specialists on that kind of mission or against that kind of foe.
So far I have decided the following:
First Comapny: Veterans, moved here from all other active companies
Second Company: Xenos, many warriors from this company have served for shorter or longer terms in the Deathwatch.
Third Company: Chaos
Fourth Company: Fast attack specialists, lots of bikes in this chapter
This is as far as I have some so far.

The Imperial Guard minis I am painting up have two minis that stand out. One of them is given purple hair, while the other is blond. Most Imperial Guard soldiers are men, but there are some women in the Guard as well. Some regiments are all male or all female, but there are also examples of mixed regiments, like the Valhallan 597th where Commissar Chiaphas Caine served in most of the books written about him. And there are also both male and female troopers in the Tanith First And Only. 

My female sergeant is a tribute to a science fiction writer named Tanya Huff, and her Sergeant Torin Kerr.
I plan to add some more female troopers in the future, as I am quite happy with my conversions, and I have more Deamonettes heads to use...

But first I will paint up my AoS Chaos army.  I have painted the purple on to the Slaanesh warriors now, and I am very happy with the way it turned out. This gives me high hopes for my Daemonettes as well, as they will have the same purple on hair and details. I hope it looks just as nice after the purple wash is added.

Space Marines through the ages...

This Saturday Games Workshop will celebrate the 30th birthday for the Space Marine figures. I have not been in to the hobby that long, but I do have some old Marines in my collection that has been around for quite some time. So I guess it is fitting that I bought some old start sets last week...

I bought two old start sets, or rather what remained of them as they didn't have very much of the original content.

This is the oldest of the two, and this is the third edition start set, containing Space Marines and Dark Eldar. I think this is the only time the Black Templars Space Marine chapter has been in a start set, the Dark Eldar I'm not so sure about.

There was not very much left in the box, but I only paid hundred Kroner (about ten Pounds or twelve Dollars) for it so I got value for my money still. I got a cool box that I plan to use for keeping minis in while they are being worked on, and I got some of the tank traps, a few Marines, some Dark Eldar, and all the jungle plants along with blast templates, dice pack and measure sticks.

The Marines will all go in to my army after they have been torn apart, cleaned up and glued back together with better glue. The glue was all soggy and they could be pulled apart without damage to the minis so I will do that and paint them up as Gatekeepers. Some of the Marines were beakies and I do love those. I will make some of them as sergeants for existing squads, and see if I can't fill up some of the squads that is missing Marines at the moment. I think I have some of those in my second company.

The few Dark Eldar figures that I got I will give away to someone collecting that faction, as I will not start an Eldar army. I don't plan to have any Marines being experts in fighting Eldar, so I don't see a use for the bits either. But I'm sure someone will appreciate some free troops.

The jungle will be used as decoration on several bases, both for some Space Marines and my Catachan jungle fighters. I have a few heavy weapon bases that has been decorated with trees, and it is quite a nice effect.


The Second box I paid two hundred kroner for, and this is a rather classic box. The Battle for Macragge was the start set people talked about when I got in to the hobby. It appears it is from the fourth edition of the game. As the name gives away this box had Space Marines and Tyranids in it.

There were no Tyranids or Space Marines in my box unfortionately, but the reason I bought it was because it had the complete sprues of the crashed Aquila lander.
Some time back I bought the Aquila pilot on Ebay, so now he has a wreck to walk away from.

The crashed lander sells on Ebay from about 250 kroner and up to the double and sometimes even more. And sometimes it's not even complete. So I think I did a good deal, and look forward to painting up the crashed lander and using it as scenery on my game table.

This box also had the blast templates and dice set, and I also got a small transfer sheet with Ultramarines and squad markings.I'm not currently using transfers on my Marines, but this is something that is possible to add at any time really, so I might add it at a later time if I feel for it. And if I do, it will be the squad markings and some special details, not the chapter markings. I know I will use transfers on my Imperial Knights, so maybe after I have used them there I might be tempted to try on a few Marines depending on the result...