So, what to do with a non-Primaris space marine army?

The above is just a small portion of the Lions of Harlech Chapter. I do believe that there is somewhere in the realm of 4-5 fully painted companies of them.

It is a valid question as out of the blue, Kushial surprised me (stunned would be more accurate) with the gift of a large space marine army this past weekend! Approximately 2k worth in points via the old marine codex as I've yet to get the current one. 

The unpainted lions...

He hasn't played 40k in close to 2 years, and has no want to paint anymore of his beloved Lions of Harlech space marines, so he was selling off the unpainted portions of his army (dreadnoughts excluded as he has a love of dreads that borders on some kind of psychosis...). However, like myself when I sold off the handful of Rainbow Warriors and the other remnants of my non-primaris marine forces, he found that they were selling for a pittance. 

The whole lot of 'em!

So, if he was to give them away, he'd give them to someone he knew that would enjoy them, rather than a total stranger. So...where to go from here, as GW (apparently) no longer has any love for the 'regular' marines. 

Perusing the archives of this blog I thought that maybe I'd revisit one of the many, many chapters that I've fielded in the past and in doing so the Tyrant's Legion caught my eye. Based on Forgeworld's (now defunct) 6th ed list, the Tyrant's Legion was Lugft Huron's attempt to build the Astral Claws up into a space marine legion of old prior to the badab war. 

At that war's conclusion, the Astral Claw/Tyrant's Legion survivors fled into the maelstrom and became the Red Corsairs, which was another army given to me  out of the blue from the Gentleman's Ones (oh how I miss that blog, and then later given away to yet another blogger who did them proud.

An image of an Astral Claw from the of FW Badab war book. Ironically, it bears a strong resemblance in color to the otherwise totally unrelated Lions of Harlech!

Anyways, originally, the Astral Claws were a loyalist chapter, and rather than have an army in open rebellion again (built of a mix of loyalist and chaos bitz as i had previously), I'm thinking of doing an earlier version, just on the cusp of heresy. The lion's share (pun intended) of the minis in my new army are 30k Mk IV marines. Conveniently, the Astral Claws had raided stockpiles of obsolete, but still serviceable kit as they sought to bolster their forces in secret. 

So how to build this with longevity in mind you ask? Simple: I use the chaos space marine codex. However like the fallen, I'll just ignore all of the chaos gods' affiliated stuff, daemons, etc., and build 'em much as a generic loyalist army, but one diverging from the codex astartes, i.e.: over sized tac squads, with 2 heavy, or special weapons, etc. 

It'll carry some of the flavor of the old FW list, whilst being entirely legal, and devoid of primaris marines and any fear of obsolescence for the foreseeable future.  Some units won't be cross-compatible of course (hey Neverness, I gotta bunch of scout snipers for ya!), and I'll need to order some bitz to convert the Landraider redeemer back into a 'regular' one. But i think it'll work and hey-best of all, that color scheme is easy to paint!