Monday, October 15, 2012

Shifting Allegiances...

o/

Well, the Aurora Chapter Space Marine army has come to an end (or will shortly). I am just tired of having 9 scouts with sniper rifles and a missile launcher fail to kill anything! Even the Sgt. never rolls higher than a 2 (that photo caption is kinda prophetic in hindsight...) or barring that, failing to wound anything. The ML scout does fairly well, but only cause he is generally firing a frag missile. Screech commented 'it was a cool idea, but it really doesn't work.' 

Only my outflanking close combat scout squad really worked well, but the inability to outflank & charge in the same turn kinda kills that. So, if you're interested in an Aurora Captain & 15 (mostly painted) scouts, which would make for a nice allied contingent assuming your dice are more kind to them than mine have been, then check ebay later this week.

However I have so much unpainted SM stuff (much of it still on the sprue), that removing the painted Auroras, replacing them with my painted captain & tac squad of the Storm Wardens, and only a few minor shoulder pad & painting adjustments to a few other (now) former Auroras, and I basically have another SM army of roughly the same size (I'm such an addict...), just with more power armor this time (though I still have 2 scout squads remaining).

First up, my Librarian:

Ya gotta love Ork decals on Space Marines!
I still don't like any of the Librarian models, so I just gave him an arm swap as I didn't care for his old the GK style storm bolter. Now with a glowing plasma pistol, he looks less like a blue GK than he did before. The plasma glow didn't come out as good as the last one, and is a bit brighter/whiter meaning he'd best pull that trigger soon...

lol, its a 'counts as' Axe.
Then there is my favorite old Techmarine. This guy started life as a Red Corsair, who was a renegade from the Sons of Medusa, and has been painted a time or two since then. I really like the model & didn't want to get rid of him as I still use him frequently (even though basic Techmarines suck). Luckily his Aurora shoulder pad popped off easily & cleanly, allowing me to put a generic Mechanicum shoulder pad from the SM vehicle sprue on. Now bereft of chapter iconography, he'll outlive whichever SM army I decide to get/get rid of, plus he can go with either the Storm Wardens, or the Dark Angels (which I got enmass in the DV boxed set).

One problem is in all of the descriptions of power weapon types, there's no listing for 'circular power saw'. WHAT...THE...FUCK...GW?

...snicker...

I also wanted to keep my 'chaplain' drop pod dreadnought. That concept, while basically a suicide unit, works well enough and again, I liked the paint job. Luckily, having a chappy entombed within, the only thing that was green was the leg guard. The Hawk Turquoise that I use easily covered that, and a decal was applied. Conveniently, the Ork decal sheets have lightning bolts of all sorts of sizes though the one that fit best is in a black box. So I carefully cut around it so it just has a black outline. It works well enough I think.

The tac squad was next but I have no pics as of yet. The one time I've used the wardens previously, the Sgt. was hard to pick out as the only difference between him & the others was the color of his helmet. I have a few base coated 5th ed starter box tac marines though (former Alpha Legionnaires) and so will use one of those per squad as the Sgt., while the old one just got a helmet repaint. That mini is only half done so will post pics of that squad later.

11 comments:

Hive Angel said...

I sense your "walking" librarian fighting for the Blood Angels in the near future since I tend to show up without one and need one. The Emperor's champion doesn't seem to work well as a librarian.

Sucks on the boy scouts, but if you have had it, then better to sell and get new instead of shell and get dust.

Da Masta Cheef said...

You have a DA libby now from the DV box...

Hive Angel said...

Oh your no fun. You will change your mind. I know you will. Or rather he will change his allegiance.

Da Masta Cheef said...

lol, but mine doesn't fit with your army, cause he has a head...

Hive Angel said...

You are cracking and plus my Tactical squads have heads, lol.

Da Masta Cheef said...

I think you need to put the magnets down & to start painting some helmets...

Paul Chappell said...

Have to admit, I set up, painted and converted a full sniper squad for my Fleshtearers army, and they were consistently the one thing that just never seemed to do much of anything for me. On paper, it seemed like a good idea, but guessing we play with a LOT of ruins/cover in general, so saves everywhere even on the off chance it was a Rend... Yes, a few times, camping the objective/Aegis line got me the win, but an Assault Squad could have done that as well... A real shame, I've always liked my Scouts... Not even going to get started on the no Assaulting out of reserve, that along with the Interceptor rule on the Aegis line completely killed my Wolf Scouts... The FT ones I never bothered to paint up when I realized how pointless they'd be...

Da Masta Cheef said...

Not sure if I should laugh or cry with ya on the scouts. I would say its good to see I'm not the only one, except that means others are suffering with their sniper scouts as I am. I'm afraid that that doesn't bode well for them on ebay...

neverness said...

Yeah, I'm with you on the sniper scouts. On scouts in general: The 'no assaulting' from infilrating/reserves/deep-striking or getting out of vehicle' really screws up a lot of the tactics I was building up my army towards, but then with my dice, what IS a sound strategy?

ALways liked you techmarine BTW. Let me know how the Drop-Pod works with the dread, I've been itching to try that with my Venerable Dreadnought...;)

Da Masta Cheef said...

The no outflank & charge is a boon to my IG as it saves them from getting eviscerated with no hope of retaliation by genestealers (over & over again). That tactic is teh kind that I think killed the outflank as certain armies like IG & Tau will simply collapse & there's nothing they could realistically do to defend themselves in that situation. Scouts were just collateral damage in that regard.

The drop pod dread works well, but is kindova suicide unit. I was using it as a venerable as well, but switched to a regular as it takes so much fire after it drops that venerable or not, it'll be dead or beat all to hell (unless I'm shooting at it) in one turn.

Still wreaks havoc with the enemy though.

neverness said...

It is a sucide unit, which is why over time I will be replacing all of the Rhinos with drop pods...so it's not just one unit or dread out there, but quite a few.