Found time to finish organizing the myriad of poly chunks and half-finished kits strewn everywhere on the workbench/game table (now all neatly tucked away underneath on shelving) and finally get back to work on several projects which had been languishing. One of which being a small, 500 point, Vanilla Space Marines (VSM) force. Up until recently I have been a vehement opponent of the Emperor's Finest, because I felt the new codex crams enough cheese between its pages to make Wisconsin jealous. To be honest, this opinion hasn't changed all that much but I wanted to give the Astartes a fair shake in light of the powerhouse that is Tyranids v5.
Though I have plenty of completed models to satisfy tactical requirements, I am fond of the whole sniper rifle/scout premise. So I set about tossing together a few of the neophytes. And then I remembered why I never used them before... I hate the Scout Marine models. A lot. I need to remind myself to make sure I answer the Forge World question what is the one model you want us to make next time I place an order with "for the love all that is holy... a decent Scout Marine!" The heads are ridiculously square and frankly, the faces look like low-brow drooling idiots. Add to that the head sits way too far forward on the torso without significant modification. Looks like an Orgyn stuffed into carapace armor. Though my green stuff skills are sorely lacking, with a SpecOp style mask in mind, I gave it a go... results below. Wasn't easy with the shaky meat hooks I have for fingers.
Not spectacular, and they sure don't look like much at the moment (putting it mildly). Once painted they'll satisfy I think. Five painstakingly puttied faces down, I turned my attention to the Razorback.
After I gave the SM codex a fresh look, I was drawn to the blurb regarding the antiquated Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasma model. Sounded like a flexible type and a good compromise between dedicated tank killer and infantry liquefier. I was a bit surprised when an image search turned up very little in terms of kitbashes or discussion of this variant. After staring at a bare Rhino for some time, I conjured up what I believe is a rather elegant modification... and damn easy to do. I like easy. Easy suits me just fine. Needs some work still, but I'm satisfied with the result.
Even managed to squeeze a game in today. IG brought the pain to my poor Boyz, but it felt good to get back in the swing of things after such a long hiatus. It's getting late and this post is already a bit long-winded, so I'll split out and BatRep separately. As a teaser though, I'll illustrate what can occur when the Emperor's Hammer pisses off a Warboss by turtling in a Hab Block for the whole game...
Before:
After:
Power Claws, accept no substitute.
1 comments:
It appears the Las/Dual-Plas Razorback variant is officially called a "Stronos Pattern".
Props to the BoLS forum junkies.
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