Works in Progress: Space Marines

Works in Progress:  Space Marines:

I have been working on some Space Marines now for a little while as my 3rd army for Warhammer 40K.    Recently in both the Berks Warhammer 40K club as well as the Adventurer's Guild, I entered a "Tale of 4 Gamers" type of challenge.   I had been making good work until life complicated things.

I had run a large tournament in April, the Berks Spring Assault.   I was ill prepared for nearly 40 players showing up and that event took a lot out of me.   Plus I was moving to a new house and that took time as well, so I had taken a break from painting and working on minatures.

Now, I have the creative bug back and have been feverishly working on completing at least the first 1000 points of this army.    Initially I wanted to create an army based on a Lesser Known chapter of Marines, since I like to keep things unique.     I eventually settled on Lamenters, as their background has been checkered with doom and they are in various states of rebuilding.

My 8 year old son, who is taking a huge liking to Warhammer 40K wanted me to build Salamanders.   Green is his favorite color and he liked how they were based upon dragons and preferred using flame weapons.    So, in lieu of building (and paying for) two armies, I decided to combine them.

So, my army fluff takes off from there the Lamenters were down to just 3 companies.   Now they are rebuilding, and my company will be the 5th company Lamenters.    Adding to that the 6th company of Salamanders aiding them in support and training.  

Now I have a combined force of Lamenters & Salamanders working together.   The Yellow and Green units look great along side each other.   Thus the combined project has been called:  STRIKE FORCE: STEEL THUNDER.

I'm working on more units, but here's some of my highlights of what I am finishing off:

Lamenter's Company Captain.    The checkerboard pattern around his cape has been tedious work but is really starting to look good.

Lamenter's Tactical squad:  The Yellow is a tough color to paint with, requiring mulitple coats.    The shoulder pads symbol, the Heart and Teardrop inside the checkerboard pattern is tough.   Good thing I spent 2 years painting a Goff ork army and mastering the Checkerboard patterns.

Salamanders tactical squad and Rhino are coming along nicely.   The Rhino, featuring Forge World doors is complete and took 3rd place in a painting competition at Hobby Town USA.

The sniper scouts look much better now that I finished the camo cloaks.   These photos do not show that, but they are coming along nicely.   I also have a completed 5-man squad of Assault scouts who will ride into battle on a Land Speeder Storm, that is currently still on sprue but mostly painted.

I hope to have these models finished by the end of July 2010.