Dark Guardians Terminators

 Next up we have the heavy troops, aka the terminators. These form the hammer to the bikers anvil (coming later!). There are quite a few squads of terminators, however there was some problems switching them across to the latest data sheets, even though only one squad, the command squad, is legends.  This was because the rules are a lot more restrictive over which weapon the various units can carry, as current deathwing terminators can't carry combat weapons, unlike the old squads where you could mix and match as you liked. I have managed to sort them in to legal squads and that's how they are marked up but seeing as how these will most likely just be packed away and never played with, it doesn't really matter!

First up we have the command elements.

HQ selection

Company master

This is the captain from the Betrayal of Calth box set, built as is with combi-melta, which is now almost completely useless in 10th edition. 

Strikemaster and Chaplain 

The strikemaster is another unit that went to legends, which is a shame, hopefully they will bring back something similar. This model has a slightly different paint scheme. The model was second hand and pre painted in black templars style when my son painted over the top of it. When he saw I was painting up my terminators he gifted it to me so it could join the others. I decided to give it a bit of an over paint to match the rest of the force but kept as much of his painting as possible, maybe it's some sort of Tyranids ichor or even Tau?

The Chaplain has his crozius arcanum represented by the hammer. I did think about repainting it a bit but decided I like him as he is, his shield and hammer stand him out enough from the rest of the army. 

Librarian 

Lastly we have the librarian, with a custom combi-melta. Even though I known it's a bit useless, I still likes the synergy of the two commanders having combi guns and the easiest one for me to build with the bits I had to hand was the combi-melta. The body is a grey Knights body and head with the relic cataphractii legs and arms. Again this one is complete with full shoulder armour, missing from the rest. I probably should go back and do the Chaplain to match. The sword arm is pre painted as it came off the ancient when his arm got switched to a power fist. This will be painted as soon as I get around to spray priming my next batch of models. 

Next we move into the command squad, the only legends squad. This consists of an ancient, apothecary, champion and two deathwing command terminators. 

Deathwing Command squad

Ancient

The ancient, with the company banner, yet to gain the final details. He come resplendent with his wolf skin, taken from a Space Wolf bested in single combat and worn as a sign of his ability and prowess as a warrior. At least that's the story anyway, it's actually because I had a random pair of space wolf terminator legs that I stuck on a spare cataphractii body. 

Apothecary and champion

The apothecary model is just a standard terminator with chain fist, just painted up with a white fist to denote his stature as apothecary. The Champion on the other hand is a mash up of several different models, with standard terminator legs, a Space Wolf body, a Dark Angels sword arm and a Grey Knight sword arm topped off with a Deathwatch shoulder pad. The model is supposed to have a Halberd of Caliban but the two Grey Knight halberds I have didn’t fit with the spare terminator arms that I have, so I went with twin swords, which I think looks good. 

Again, the champion model is on the list of model to spray up, something I’ll hopefully get around to soon, if the weather is any good! Last up are the two Command terminators, one with heavy flamer and one with power weapon. There are here just to add some close range fire power and some extra combat punch. 

The next squad is technically not a Deathwing Squad but a regular Terminator Assault Squad. This is because the current deathwing squads cant take close combat weapons, something I'm sure will change when the new assault terminators are released. These are currently a mix of old school terminator and Cataphratii terminator bodies with cataphartii lightning claw arms. 

Old School Terminators

Cataphratii terminators

The next squad is the first deathwatch terminator squad, although this one has a heavy flamer compared to the other squads with assault cannons. 

More wolf bits on the squad sergeant 

This squad is a Deathwing terminator squad with assault cannon.

The triplets!

The last deathwing terminator squad contains an assault cannon and a chain fist, just to mix things up a bit!

With so many sculpt the same, I have tried to mix up some of the paint jobs, even if just a little bit. These two with assault cannons show some of the differences between some of the models, just minor changes to the paint scheme. 

I will put the bikes up here soon, when I get around to painting them all up. Most of the are ready primed but some need stripping and reprising, which I will do when I get home from summer holidays.

Dark Guardians first born

 Alongside the recent games, I have been spending some evenings, when I have time!, trawling through my backlog of grey plastic and working towards my 2024 goals. The latest round of models to get painted are my Dark Guardians and more specifically the first born terminators, although this lot aren't terminators at all!

The first models on the paint tray were the non terminators or bikes and form the core command structure of the army, fluff wise at least. This little core units of 6 models contains, lore wise, the company master and his command squad with the companies champion, banner and apothecary alongside two veterans for some protection. Alongside the scout squads, they form the foot mobile core element of the army.

The complete command squad

Company master

This, as far as I know, is an original Assault on Black Reach captain, who's terminators will feature in the next post. 

The command squad

The command squad, now part of legends, form the bulk of the power armoured section here. 

Ancient

The ancient with his combi-plasma and chain sword (aka combat weapon) with his Deathwatch Insignia just visible on his right shoulder pad. 

Apothecary and Champion

The apothecary is actually an old metal model and weights a ton compared to the new plastic models, I'm always surprised when I pick it up how heavy it actually is. The Champion is technically lacking his shield but I don't think this is an issue. He has his sword and pistol and all the trappings of a company champion, with his fancy back banner and flash shoulder pad plus a rather swanky hoodie. 

Champions fancy banner and shoulder pad.

Next up are the two vets, one with the standard boltgun and one with plasma cannons. The boltgun marine is basically there as some ablative wounds for the other models and the plasma cannons is there for some heavy firepower, even though plasma cannons aren't quite what they use to be.

Lastly we're moving in to the "Ravenwing" with two land speeders. The first is land speeders Tempest with heavy bolter and assault cannon but can also be run as a Ravenwing Talon Master as well. The second is a land speeders Typhoon, with it's missile.lanchers and multi-melta. These for part of the mobile element of the list along side the bike squads that are currently on the painting table.

Dark Guardians

 The last of my smaller marine forces is now complete, kind of anyway but I'll get to that in a bit.

First up as always, the group photo. Sorry for the rubbish quality but for some reason my photography skill seem to be getting worse the more photos I take, probably because I'm trying to rush getting the pictures.

As you can see, there are 3 Inceptors, 3 Outriders and a squad of Infiltrators, all lead by a librarian.

The librarian is the current leader of the force and is there to "sniff" out chaos wherever it maybe hiding. 

A couple of very bad shots of the Libby. I hadn't realised quite how bad these photos where until I posted them up here. I've been using transfers again this time and I'm quite proud of the one of his shoulder as I had to cut and trim it to get it to fit under the cloak.  

Next up are the Infiltrators. These are the first contact squad, going forth and finding the enemy. As such they contain a medic, to help keep them fighting a little bit longer. This is just a basic 5 man squad as they are not really the ones expected to do much of the heavy lifting. 

The units symbols and the chapter symbol have also changed. The new symbol, a mashup of a sisters symbol (order of the ardent shroud) and the DA logo, specifically the wings. Each unit also has a unique symbol on there opposite shoulder, these have a skull.

Out riders are next and one bit I like about these is the Eggs bike in the middle and his scroll work on the bike. This is a transfer from the betrayal of Calth set but it looks good on the bike, whether this is an oath, litany, battle or personal honours or list of victims I haven't decided but you cant read it anyway so it can be whatever I want really. The other bikes show the markings for company, squad and battlefield role, with the chapter symbols on the shoulder pads. 

You can't see here but the chapter symbol is different on these, being more aligned with the ravenwing. Again the sword has been replaced with the skull from the ardent shroud.

Lastly we have the Inceptors. These form the final prong of the attack, with the Infiltrators being the centre thrust and the bikes flanking, these guys are a hammer that drops from behind. Painting these models proved a little bit of a challenge, the Infiltrators are "greenwing", the Outriders Ravenwing, which should have made these Deathwing. However, they just don't fit the fluff for Deathwing as they really are just greenwing or possibly even fall under Ravenwing being a fast moving unit. In the end I kept them as normal marines and will.look to add something more Deathwing in future.

I have yet to.finish the bases for these guy, as I need to get some brass rod or something. I also need to do the Suspressors for the Stone Dragons, so I'll probably do them all at the same time. 

As I said the chapter symbol is the standard symbol, with the unit symbol being a lightning bolt, to signify their lighting assault from above. 

A better shoot of the different chapter symbols, the two standard symbols on the outside and the Ravenwing in the centre. For future Deathwing units, the symbols will be similar to the standard symbol but with red Wings on a bone background.

The squad markings, designating each squad and role.

Remember when I said that the force was kinda finished? Well here's the reason;

While online the Libby as the leader, while I was painting them I felt that they needed something else, something more in keeping with the Guardians, their chapter mission and this forces own mission and so a chaplain was born. Now I would love to have him as an Interrogator chaplain but as yet they are only 1st born and not Primaris marine scale, so he will be a normal chaplain for the time being.

Also, I really like this pack, it's a mix of sigmarines stuff and a chaos pack, but it goes together really well, with the vent ports reaching out past the details on the top of the pack. 

I've kitted him out some what, he has his crozius and pistol but also a chainsword, which he can't actually take. I was thinking about adding more stuff but ran out of room on him. 

As you can see, he has also been suitably adorned with purity seals, reliquaries and other trinkets, as any self respecting chaplain would be.

The figure itself is a mash up of marine, AoS sequitor, necron (head of crozius) chaos marine backpack, AoS retributor pack, and a bits box raid. The only issue now is how to paint him? His armour will be black, as the chapter has black armour, as well as chaplains but his robes will be coloured. I was wondering about red, the same as the shoulders on the normal marines but I'm not sure about that, so maybe white and green, like the DA ones? Or maybe go completely off base and go for purple or something? Anyway, right now the Eagle Knights are on the paint table, so it will be a little while until I get around to painting him, plenty of time to decide.

Dark Guardians

 The Dark Guardians are my second marine army and as a Dark Angels successor, they are part of my second favorite marine army. I have always loved the lore of the 1st legion, it's hidden history and shady dealing. The Dark Guardians were supposed to be a full 2000+ point army in there own right, to go alongside my Eagle Knights army but with no time to really paint or play they have been relegated to the loft, although there is a full force there just waiting to get painted and I will get them painted, one day.........

Anyway, there new Primaris Guardians are one their way, although it might be a while till I get the last of them. First though, there have been, as always, a few updates to the chapter. This time the updates are minor and are pretty much all visual. Some may have noticed that the colour scheme has changed a bit from the fluff, to be honest I didn't when I painted them! I had gone off the original scheme, mostly the yellow chest plate but when I painted up the kill team, I followed the pattern from a biker I had already painted up and did t really think much about it. It was only when I was over the pages for the Brazen Hawks that I noticed that the colours for the Guardians was different on their page! Anyway this is the old and new colours for the Guardians;

The old scheme

The new scheme

I think the new scheme is cleaner, simpler. It doesn't show very well on here but the edges of the pauldrons and vents on the pack are actually metallic, leadbelcher to be precise. It's clearer n these pictures;

Apart from the colour scheme changing, the lore will remain the same but as with the others, be progressed. In terms of the Guardians this means accepting, all be it grudgingly some primaris marines, who will be put to work on more mundane tasks, while those who survive the upgrade procedure will continue with the "other" tasks. The force will switch to the new bikes and heavier armoured primaris units, namely gravis armoured  Inceptors. These fit in to the tried and tested hammer and anvil tactics of the chapter.

The 500 point force will consist of a Chaplain and 2 scout squads. One of these squads will be for close combat work, with knives and bolt pistols, while the other will have sniper rifles, heavy bolters and bolters. This core will be supported by a squad of the new Outriders , just the one squad of 3 for the moment. There will also be a squad of Inceptors, armed with the assault bolters, mainly because these are the ones that come in the Dark Imperium box set. If I decide to increase the size of this force, then I will no doubt add another squad of bikes and a squad of plasma Inceptors, I may also add in one of the new land speeders but that's going to be some way off, like years!

So far I have the scouts and the Inceptors and fire the mean time a lieutenant will suffice as the units warlord, meaning I will have a legal force to field.