4th Edition Space Marine Chapter Selector

Seeing Pete building up a classic marine Crimson Fist army has given me some inspiration and excitement to paint up my remaining old “firstborn” marines as well. I figure they could participate in our campaigns, either against Tyranids or Traitor Guard, or if Pete feels like trying out Orks, or even as allies to the Fists.

The question is, which chapter to paint?

Criteria to Consider:

Painting: Fun to paint (somewhat efficient, easy-to-use colors, looks cool). 

Modeling: Conversion ideas, unit types that I like to build, fits with the models and bits I already have. 

Lore: Participated in classic 40k campaigns, especially Rynn’s World and Third War for Armageddon, that we would like to play. 

Distinctiveness: Different colors from our existing armies. Unique look as a chapter. 

Retro cool: Chapter highlighted in the old codices, rule books, and White Dwarf magazines of the 90s and 2000s. Color scheme reminiscent of this era. 

I will assign each chapter a score of 1 - 5 in each category for a total score of 5 - 25.

Chapters Under Consideration:

Storm Lords

Painting: They look awesome, but painting looks challenging with the split scheme, especially trying to get a freehand straight line between two contrasting colors on vehicles. White is a challenge, but I’ve developed some decent techniques for it. Painting white over red (to fix mistakes) is not fun. Red is one of the most fun, striking, and beautiful colors Citadel makes. The yellow helmets look fun. I am just not sure I can do another white army. 

Score: 2 

Modeling: As a White Scars successor, I can use some existing bits. Interesting potential to work in thunderbolts and storm motifs. Chapter shoulder pads exist. 

Score: 4

Lore: They are the only chapter that I’ve found that has documented lore of their participation in the War of the Beast, Rynn’s World, and the Third War for Armageddon. Also, a White Scars successor famous for fighting Orks. 

Score: 5

Distinctiveness: Red and white have been common with Hydra Legion, White Scars, and Blood Angels. Yellow helmets and split scheme would help them pop. 

Score: 2

Retro Cool: Halved paint scheme? Different color helmet? Definitely checks the boxes. They show up in Codex Armageddon, 4th Edition Codex, and 7th Edition Codex. 

Score: 5

Total Score:  18

Mantis Warriors

Painting: Yellowish pale green seems reasonably easy to paint. Green is one of the nice colors you can highlight up and shade down or use Contrast paints. Yellow accent color would take a bit more work but adds a nice pop. They look fairly cool. Not as bold and dynamic as some chapter colors.

Score: 4

Modeling: As a White Scars successor, I can use some existing bits. An insect theme could result in some interesting modeling opportunities. They have a sort of Ninja vibe: individualistic, sneaky, ambushing, going on a quest to reclaim their lost honor, etc. That theme could open up some more ideas that we have not done yet. Old Rouge Trader art shows them wearing camo (gasp!). Chapter shoulder pads exist. 

Score: 4

Lore: Not at Rynn’s World or Armageddon. Fought in Badab War, which is a pretty iconic campaign featured in Imperial Armor books 9 and 10 (authored by the immortal Alan Bligh just before the first Horus Heresy black book). They turned traitor during that war, which could setup some fun games with an excuse for marine vs marine action. Afterwards, redeemed through a 100-year crusade, which could bring them to Rynn's World (Badab War ended in 913 M41 while the Rynn's World invasion was in 988 M41 with the retaking of the planet in ~990-991 M41). White Scars successor via the Marauders. Not founded yet during War of the Beast. 

Score: 3

Distinctiveness: We have no other armies using light green as army colors, although it is sort of close to Ork skin. No one using yellow as accent color so that should pop on the table. 

Score: 4

Retro Cool: They are not in any of the old Codices, but they are in the Forge World Imperial Armor Badab War books, some of the pinnacle publications of the Warhammer hobby and released just before the game started to go off the rails in 6th Edition. Sadly, I don’t have those particular IA books (yet). They have been around since the Rogue Trader days, first appearing in White Dwarf in 1988.  

Score: 3

Total Score: 18

White Scars

Painting: I have some recipes that are not too painful, but overall white is a challenge to paint and I’ve been painting it for years so I’m pretty tired of it. It would let me field Heresy units in 40k in order to have a bigger army faster.  But if I want to paint more Scars, I can do so for Heresy. Fun factor drops the score to 2 at this point.

Score: 2

Modeling: I love the Scars motif and have loads of bits already. Even though most are Heresy, old armor and shoulder pads can be mixed in. Lots of bits are available. But I’ve been doing this theme for a long time and I would be replicating some stuff I’ve already done probably. 

Score: 4

Lore:  Fought at both Rynn’s World and Armageddon. Haven’t seen anything on the War of the Beast but given that it was a major conflict across the galaxy and the Scars existed at the time, they definitely would have fought in it. 

Score: 5

Distinctniveness: Obviously not distinct from the Heresy army. Among the 40k armies, only the Tyranids have a lot of white. The semi-retired Hydra Legion has off-white. We have two other white Heresy armies with World Eaters and Death Guard.  

Score: 2

Retro Cool: They appear in most of the major rule books, codices, and publications. Never as big a part of the lore as the Big Four: Ultras, Wolves, Dark Angels and Blood Angels, but in the next tier. Because their scheme continues to evolve with the new editions of the game, I would call it timeless rather than retro. 

Score: 4

Total Score: 16

Blood Angels Successor: Angels Encarmine or Flesh Tearers

Painting: Red is very satisfying to paint and not super difficult. Black is not too bad if there isn’t too much of it; it just requires finicky, sharp edge highlighting. Red always looks great on the battlefield. 

Score: 4

Modeling: I have Blood Angels metal special characters and metal Death Company that were gifted to me. I could use them with a successor. Tons of Blood Angel bits are available, but not much for these successors. Seems like either one would be very assault heavy, which are fun to model and different from my White Scars and Sons of Horus. 

Score: 4

Lore: Angels Encarmine fought at Rynn’s World and Flesh Tearers at Armageddon. 

Score: 4 for Encarmine and 3 for Tearers. 

Distinctiveness: With Blood Angels already in our games, either of these chapters would look almost identical.

Score: 1

Retro Cool: They both show up in multiple old publications. Bold red with high contrast trim and Aquilas are very reminiscent of the old days. 

Score: 4 

Total score: 16

Hawk Lords

Painting: Purple looks interesting and seems like it should be similar to both blue and red, which are relatively forgiving colors to paint. Gold trim would not be hard. Yellow would take a bit more work. The whole marine being a single color makes things easier. But it would probably take some edge highlighting to make the purple pop, which is a pain. Painting a new color would be fun. 

Score: 4

Modeling: I could use just about any bird or feather themed bits; there are plenty of those. Not much that I can find specific to Hawk Lords. An aerial themed force with lots of speeders and jump packs could look quite striking. The only chapter on this list that is not a White Scars successor.

Score: 3

Lore: They are reported to have fought in the War of the Beast. They are not listed as participants in either the Rynn’s World Campaign or Third War for Armageddon or any of the Imperial Armor books as far as I know. 

Score: 1

Distinctiveness: We have no purple armies so far. These guys would stand out in any game and on any battlefield. However, they do look a lot like Heresy Emperor’s Children. 

Score: 4

Retro Cool: Although included in a few old sources such as the 4th Edition Codex, they never really got much attention and didn’t show up in any of the classic battle reports or army photos that I remember.  They seem to actually be a bigger part of the lore now than in the 3rd-4th edition days.

Score: 3

Score: 15

Sons of Jaghatai

Painting: As stated above, purple would be interesting and different. And I like the bone secondary color better than the gold/yellow of the Hawk Lords and it makes them more distinct from Heresy Thousand Sons. I bet I could use Contrast paints to paint them quickly and they would look decent. 

Score: 5

Modeling: Another White Scars successor, I assume, even though it is not confirmed in the lore. They seem to have a bit of a Turkic theme so I would go that route rather than anything ninja or samurai themed. No shoulder pads or decals or bits that I know of. They appear to use back banners so that would be fun and retro.

Score: 3

Lore: Basically no official lore. They were created for a White Dwarf article on how to create your own Space Marine chapter. 

Score: 1

Distinctiveness: We have no purple armies. Even if Pete eventually paints Heresy Thousand Sons, these guys would still be distinct, unlike The Hawk Lords.

Score: 5

Retro Cool: They show up only in White Dwarf 299 and How to Paint Space Marines, as far as I know. The scheme is reminiscent of their time, but they were never part of the old 40k artwork or campaigns.

Score: 2

Score: 16

Scoring Summary:

Storm Lords: 18

Mantis Warriors: 18

White Scars: 16

Angels Encarmine: 16

Sons of Jaghatai: 16

Hawk Lords: 15

They are all surprisingly close. The White Scars are out because if I want to paint more of them, I can work on my Heresy army. I really love the Storm Lords and they fit the lore perfectly, but I do not know if I can take on white and red again, especially the vehicles. I am leaning toward Mantis Warriors or Sons of Jaghatai, mostly to paint something different because the painting is where you spend most of the time in this hobby.

Midhammer Rules Release Timeline

Some dark corners of the webway refer to the glory days of the "Third Edition Paradigm" (3rd - 7th editions) as "midhammer" 40,000 to differentiate from "oldhammer" (Rouge Trader and Second Edition) and the current editions.

With our Third Xhorik War campaign using 4th Edition rules and our upcoming Rynn's World campaign also planning to use that ruleset, I wanted to document when the various rules and supplements were released in order to help determine which rules are most appropriate. 

The books we have are in normal text; those we do not are in grey. The books we are using will be in bold red. 

Third Edition Rules: October 1998

Codex Space Marines (3rd): 1998

Codex Blood Angels (3rd): 1999 

Codex Imperial Guard (3rd): 1999

Codex Eldar (3rd): 1999 

Codex Assassins (3rd): 1999 

Codex Orks (3rd): 1999

Codex Armageddon: 1999 

Codex Tyranids (3rd): 2001

Codex Chaos Space Marines (3.5th): 2002 

Codex Imperial Guard (3.5th): 2003

Codex Witch Hunters (3rd): April 2004 

Fourth Edition Rules: August 2004

Codex Space Marines (4th): 2004

Codex Tyranids (4th): 2005

IA3 Taros Campaign: October 2005

Cities of Death: June 2006

IA4 The Anphelion Project: December 2006

Apocalypse: October 2007 

Codex Orks (4th): January 2008

Fifth Edition Rules: July 2008

Codex Space Marines (5th): October 2008

Codex Imperial Guard (5th): May 2009

Codex Planetstrike: 2009

IA8 Raid on Kastorel-Novem: May 2010

Battle Missions Scenarios Book: 2010 

IA9 Badab War Part 1: October 2010

IA10 Badab War Part 2: January 2011  

Sixth Edition Rules: June 2012 

Codex Space Marines (6th): September 2013 

IA3 Taros Campaign (2nd Edition): October 2013

Seventh Edition Rules: May 2014

Codex Orks (7th): June 2014 

Codex Space Marines (7th): June 2015 

More Skulltakaz! Shoota Boyz!

I finished my second big mob of Deathskulls for the upcoming Rynn's World campaign using 4th Edition rules. Any ork warband without at least two huge mobs of boyz is not worthy of the name, I say. Just like last time, I assembled 20 boyz before I remembered the nob so once again, I have 21 in the mob. Oh well, unlike humans, orks do not care about neat organization into multiples of ten. The nob leads as many boyz as he can inspire (and bully) into following him!

I kept the same paint scheme and once again, everyone gets a skull - or part of one - for good luck. But I updated the bases. The previous version was a little too muddy looking. I went with a drier frozen base and a black rim for visual dead space between the base and the board. I am happier with the result. 

M32 Battle Report 3: Blood Angels Raid on Ork Fuel Depot

 "Surprise insertion. Eliminate all six targets. Rapid extraction before the enemy can respond."

-Captain Garo, Blood Angels Second Company

Background:

The Ork invasion of Xhorik Prime is well underway. Battles rage across northern Bhorivor and northeastern Kozar. After a number of early defeats, including the loss of Vayya and its mines, the planetary defenses are stiffening as reserve regiments are mobilized to the front lines to stall the ork advances. But with Imperial garrisons under pressure along the entire front, and no effective reserves arriving from Unimund, any hopes of an effective counterattack by the humans are still far from realistic. The priority for the Imperial forces is to slow the Orks and buy time for reinforcements to arrive. 

Scenario:

We played the Raven Guard First Strike scenario from IA8: Raid on Kastorel-Novem. The space marines would be arriving Deep Strike and had to destroy at least four of the six ork fuel tanks. The fuel tanks count as immobile vehicles with AV12 and any Vehicle Destroyed or Explodes! result would destroy it. Alternatively, all attacker units are assumed to be equipped with demo charges which can be attached by assaulting the fuel tank, causing them to automatically explode at the end of the assaulting player's next turn. Night Fighting would be in effect for the entire batttle. 

Belligerents:

Blood Angels Space Marines

• Captain
• Terminator Squad
• Assault Squad
• Assault Squad
• Tactical Squad
• Tactical Squad
• Tactical Squad
• Dreadnought

Orks

• Warboss
• Meganobz with trukk
• Tankbustas
• 'Ard Boyz
• Slugga Boyz
• Slugga Boyz
• Shoota Boyz
• Warbikers

M32 Battle Report 4: Subterranean Seek and Destroy

 "Valor is superior to number."

-Chaplain Apollonius, Blood Angels Second Company

Background:

The Third Xhorik War has been raging for nearly a year. The Planetary Governor has been frantically calling for aid, ever since the loss of the major cities of Vayya and Ironton and most of Bhroivor north of Chiros Nova. The continued delays and excuses from Unimund have raised his suspicions, but he has no proof of disloyalty yet. With Imperial forces engaged on a thousand warzones across the galaxy during the dark time known as the War of the Beast, there were no armies to spare. Finally, the Blood Angels strike force Belarius arrived: a single Vanguard-class Light Cruiser transporting the 2nd battle company plus reserves elements from the 7th, 8th and 9th companies.

The Space Marines quickly discovered that the novel species of Xenos was using the subterranean tunnels beneath Ironton to grow their strength out of the frigid winter weather and safe from the Ork and human armies. A small strike team was assembled to enter the tunnels and eliminate the aliens. Yet swarms of scuttling, clawed shapes soon started tracking the Blood Angels intruders and it quickly became unclear who was hunting whom. There would be no prisoners and no mercy in the darkness of the tunnels.

Battle:

Chaplain Apollonius led his men through the utter blackness of the catacombs. The limited level of night vision enabled by their tactical dreadnought and power armor was sufficient to see at the limited distances afforded by the labyrinthine passages. As they progressed deeper and deeper below the city, the tunnels were becoming more and more coated with Xenos biomass. Marines armed with flamers worked methodically to clear the creeping tendrils and nesting areas, filling the narrow passages with acrid smoke and the squeals of the unborn aliens. So far only sporadic resistance had been encountered from the alien beasts, alone or in small groups, easily dispatched by the veteran marines of Second Company. In the smoky darkness of the winding corridors, the marine patrols began to get separated. 

Suddenly, urgent reports started coming in across the com-links from all units. Xenos were closing in from all sides. Within seconds, all units were simultaneously engaged, facing threats from multiple directions at once, even in their rear from tunnels they had already cleared. Not expecting this level of coordination, precise timing, and surprise from such mindless bugs, Herodontus found his units had been quickly separated from each other and pressed under heavy attack. Leading his most elite unit of terminators personally, he fought his way to the aid of a few nearby tactical squads fighting alongside the demi-company's only dreadnought. Before he could bring all his forces together, more swarms of the foul xenos had emerged and were bearing down on his position. They would have to fight their way out. Only one species would survive this day...

Results:

The Blood Angels win!

Post Game:

Despite an effective infiltration surprise attack by the Broodlord his Genestealers, the Blood Angels are able to win the day. The space marine dreadnought held out for a while and inflicted serious damage but was eventually overcome by the masses of rending attacks. The marines' ability to tactically fall back and make the Tyranids come at them piecemeal around corners and through overlapping firing lanes proved the difference. The combined weight of fire from a tactical and terminator squad that holed up in the final room together was too much for any Tyranid unit. The few that made it through the fire were insufficient to win the assault. The marines were able to force the melee-focused aliens to come to them on their own terms. 

Recursive Lambent Generator Station Vardu-[5A]

 

This is the latest in my series of pieces that mix the Sector Mechanicus terrain with stuff from around the house. This one has a base that is a book cover and "granny grating". The main green piece is a flowerpot while the blue piece is the housing of a broken household electronic, with other bits stuck to the top and bottom. If I measured correctly, the catwalks will hopefully align vertically with the height of the actual sets and allow this piece to fit in with the rest. I wanted to have a fairly large platform area that could fit a good-sized squad or enable a modest melee since most of the elevated platforms are pretty narrow. I did not put any railings around the central area to leave even more room for weapons and arms to stick off the edges and enable more models to fit into a melee. 

I am looking forward to having enough of this terrain to fill an entire table soon.

 

Logs - Scatter Terrain

 After assembling a piece of furniture, I had some of those wooden dowels leftover. I decided to glue them into piles and paint them like stacked logs as some simple scatter terrain. It will work.

White Scars Legion Destroyer Assault Squad

With the planet of Xhorik Prime now lost to the vile traitors, the Brotherhood of the Broken Blade continued their transformation from a heroic force focused on the liberation of mankind to a warband fixated only on vengeance and the death of their enemies. No longer did they think of saving the planet or its populace from the desecrations of the Warmaster's forces. Their only goal now was to kill as many traitors as possible, especially their leaders. It was at this final desperate point when they opened up the sealed containers storing the weapons of last resort, such as the dreaded rad grenades, toxiferran flamers, and phosphex bombs. If the planet had to die to save it from the traitors, so be it. There could be no consideration for mercy, honor, or innocence.

The few remaining White Scars would don the ancient, battle-scarred armor of their Legion Destroyer Squads, not used since the earliest days of the Great Crusade. They would take the oaths of the Sagyar Mazan and seek to atone for their failure with their lives... and the destruction of as many enemies as possible until the release of death should be given them.

I spent a long time modeling each of these guys, trying to generate unique and dynamic poses to make it feel like they were really swooping down to attack, using their jump packs to leap into combat. Given how chunky and generally static the marine models are, I was pushing for all I could do to open them up and give them some sense of motion. I raided the bits box quite hard for the variety of pieces and used a lot of non-GW bits to ensure they really stand out from the rest of the army on the battlefield. I also wanted to show all their equipment: dual pistols, chain swords, grenades (frag, krak, rad, and phosphex), as well as the obvious weapon upgrades.

In game terms, I fear they will be underwhelming for their exorbitant cost. They have lots of neat weapons and rules, but at the end of the day, they are WS4, 1W, 3+ save so will die as easily as a ten-man tactical squad, but cost a cool 275 points kitted out. I just hope they get one awesome attack in before they wiped out!