Ben's Blood Drinkers Space Marines - OWAC IX - Rank and File Month 2

This month, I painted some Devastators, a Techmarine, and my favourite, a Furioso Dreadnought (weighing in at a mighty 290g - so heavy I had to pop this guy on the kitchen scales just to see).  Each have had to have some kind of repairs due to the battle scars they have picked up in their long campaigns, but there's something quite satisfying about restoring these guys to their rightful glory.

The Devastators, from the 5th Company 10th Squad, are armed with tank-busting lascannons and missile launchers.  They have standard Codex markings, using shoulder pad symbols to show they are a devastator squad rather than helmet colour like the Blood Angels, their parent Chapter.  I'm painting my sergeants with blue helmets because red would not stand out.  The sergeant had lost his head so I had to add a new one culled from Warriors of The Imperium plastic set.  I've also snuck in another converted Long Fang for variety, clipping off some of the Space Wolf icons and covering them over with green stuff purity seals.

Unfortunately I've not been able to give banners to the veterans leading the second combat squads, as they did in 2nd Ed, because the backpacks with banner poles are so hard to come by.  However, I've tried to follow the RT/early 2nd edition paint jobs where the heavy weapons are brightly coloured and decorated with flames and checks.

The Dreadnought had lost his banner pole, so I had to replace that with some brass rod and the top from a Dark Angels banner - I carefully scraped away the sword the angel was holding and suggested a grail with some greenstuff.

Finally, I had to include a Techmarine because he is mandatory for the force to include any vehicles.  He had lost his handheld thingummy, so I replaced that with Mephiston's pistol from my bits box - it will be a Master Crafted Plasma Pistol that can fire every turn.  I've continued with the half-and-half colour scheme I intend to use for my characters, half the brownish orange red of the Chapter, half a contrasting more pinkish red of the mechanicum.

Altogether, this came to 751 points:

Ben's Blood Drinkers Space Marines - OWAC IX - Rank and File Month 1

Time flies eh?  I started this year's challenge, painting the Blood Drinkers 5th Company, appropriately with the 1st Tactical Squad and their attendant Rhino, managed to squeeze in a couple of pieces of terrain(a 3D-print designed by Doctor Spork, not scratch built I'm afraid), and all of a sudden it's the end of the month.

My aim was to combine some of the brightness of 2nd edition Space Marines with some Rogue Trader inspired features and some of the markings from John Blanch art.  I used a few new techniques to help things along.  After priming with dark red all over and bright red from above, I used a wash of contrast paint mixed with medium and brown wash to establish the brownish red scheme.  I used a makeup sponge to quickly apply the mid tone and first highlight, and contrast paint to start off the yellow markings, which made the aquilas much easier to paint than I remember.  After finishing the main colours I used a coarser sponge to apply chipping damage.  

I spent a bit of time cutting and repositioning arms to get a variety of poses.  The marine armed with heavy bolter is a Long Fang with some of the Space Wolves detail clipped off, he has a really nice advancing pose I think goes well with a Tactical Squad.

The Rhino started off in an extremely battered state.  I used aluminium tubing to repair the exhaust pipes, WWII tank stowage to replace the missing storage box and cover over badly battered areas of hull, restored the boltguns with those from a bike, and used my son's 3d-printer to replace the roof hatch and dozer blade.  The smoke launchers I unfortunately had to replace with later edition spares.  The paint scheme is mostly 2nd Edition, but with placement of markings somewhat inspired by rogue trader Rhinos.  I may come back to it and apply some more rust and weathering but for now I'm happy enough.

For a bit of variety I painted a Medic in a half and half scheme; I plan to paint all the character models this way.

This came to a total of 431 points:

Lastly, here is my offering, a Kev Adams night Goblin:

Ben's Blood Drinkers Space Marines - OWAC IX - Intro post

For my fourth run at the OWAC I've finally built up enough impetus to attempt a long-held ambition - completing a Space Marine army for 2nd Edition 40K.  I've had a few goes at a Space Marine army in the past, but never finished off an army I was satisfied with.  I took quite a while deciding what chapter to paint as I wanted it to meet quite a few criteria.  It would need to:

• Tie in to some inspiring oldhammer art - probably Space Marines covered in checks and flames by John Blanche
• Contrast with my blue and yellow Alaitoc Eldar from OWAC VII - so not Ultramarines (blue) or Blood Angels (yellow helmets on assault marines)
• Be a bit brighter than the Relictors (dark grey) and Dark Angels (dark green) I've painted before
• Have chapter symbols I could use transfers for - I've never been satisfied with my attempts at hand painting
• Ideally, be a bit different to other armies I've seen before

I therefore decided to paint Blood Drinkers, taking inspiration from the 40K 2nd Edition box art.  Blood Drinkers are described in the Angels of Death Codex as having markings similar to Ultramarines, meaning the 5th company with its black shoulder pad trims would resemble the space marines in the art, and red/black will be bright and contrast nicely with blue/yellow.  I managed to buy some black goblet transfers for the chapter badge online, and could use my stash of generic space marine transfers for the rest of the heraldry.  

I test painted a couple of models to try to decide whether to paint them bright red in the style of the 2nd edition codex, or darker in the style of the original Rogue Trader illustration of Space Marine chapters, and to try out the Rogue Trader yellow stripe on the helmets. I'm still trying to decide!

 

Test painted models

Should I go for brighter red...

Or browner red?  What about the yellow helmet stripe?

Whichever I choose, there will be flames!

Blood Drinkers have been described as having achieved a measure of control over the black rage that affects the Blood Angels and their other successor chapters.  I thought the army would therefore need plenty of Apothecaries and Chaplains to inspire and monitor their brethren.  I decided to collect a diverse, mobile force with plenty of bikes and vehicles rather than an all-out assault army, to give me a variety of units to paint.  

I've tried to keep it all second edition, with a couple of notable exceptions.  As with my Eldar I've used larger bases than the originals - I think they look better and with modern base sizes I can more easily use them in games across editions.  One or two bits and pieces, as few as I could manage, are from later editions - either where I had the parts missing from purchases in my bits box, or where later awesome models were sculpted in the style of the art in a way that no conversion I could do would match (notably the Blood Angels captain).  

I spent ages drilling all the barrels and trying to get the arms, weapons and shoulder-pads all fitting and coherently posed.  I now think the reason I could never get this to work properly as a thirteen-year-old is that they don't actually fit well at all, and need a fair bit of reposing and filling with greenstuff to work.  I did some minor sculpting and conversion to fix broken or chapter-specific parts.  I had my son 3D-print me a few vehicle parts, and I plan to try to press-mould a couple more missing bits.  The result of all this is I've assembled far too many models - around 5,000 points, with a few more characters, scouts and marines to call up once I can find the time, and all the required arms...

To tackle this I therefore decided I had to split it into manageable separate forces.  The first would be a flexible core based on the opening 2nd edition battle report in WD166.  This comes to 1500 points (once I swap the HQ Captain for a cheaper Medic), more or less covers the minimum requirements for an OWAC season if I don't manage to get any further, and, if it was good enough for Andy Chambers it's good enough for me.  I'm now thoroughly looking forward to putting primer to metal!