My first foray into the world of Pre-Heresy Space Marines is over. While, I wouldn't call this a resounding success, I am quite happy with the results. This squad of five marines are modeled up to be Sternguard, though only their bolter signifies this from a modeling standpoint.
I used my normal Ultramarine color pallet, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, I'm not a fan of the darker blues that some Ultramarine players have adopted. For another, the Ultramarines are such strict adherents to the Codex Astartes, I doubt they would have changed the color scheme of their armor in the ten millennia since the Heresy.
For the bases, I wanted a ruins of Calth look, so I glued on ballast, added a piece of sprue rubble and a bit of razor wire as well. In truth, this could signify any muddy battlefield, but it is a snapshot of what I imagine that notable Horus Heresy battlefield to look like.
The main bit of creativity I have exercised on this project was in the left shoulder pad design. The Ultramarines legion had some 250,000 Space Marines at the height of the Great Crusade. That equates to 250 chapters, and 2,500 companies. It was suggested on Bolter & Chainsword that I use the standard company colors, regardless of which chapter or company I chose to model. Then I could just signify the chapter number somewhere on the marines.
In the end, I chose to put the Chapter number on the top of the shoulder pad. Underneath it is the Company number. In the bottom left corner is the squad number, and in the bottom right corner is the squad symbol. I think this is a good representation of the 91st chapter, 901st company. The mainline marines will end up being from the 905th company, and then they will get probably a Land Raider and some Predators for armor support. Hopefully Forge World will do some Pre-Heresy terminators as well.
These new FW armour marks are brilliant and I'm using my Mk IIs for Sternguard too (as well as everyone else it seems). Like you say, the addition of some terminators would really be the icing on the cake.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to see assault marine arms for the MK II armor as well, the regular arms don't match, and it wouldn't look right. Jump packs would be nice too.
ReplyDeleteThey look sweet - I like how you solved the company/chapter issue.
ReplyDeleteThough I should mention they're in Mk3 armour - Mk2 is Crusade armour.
Gotthammer, Thanks for the feedback. You are quite right on the Mark, and I have made the edit to correct that. I get Iron and Crusade armor confused sometimes, they are a bit similar in some respects.
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