My Top Five Space Marine Models

In honor of the new Space Marine codex release, I decided to go back and look at my favorite Space Marine Models I have built.

First off we have my Terminator Apothecary.  This was from before GW had this as ready made option in the Deathwing terminator box.

Next we have my powerfist and shotgun space marine scout sergeant.  Nothing really fancy just every piece coming together just right to get a cool looking mini.

Here we have my Mk IV Space Marine Honor Guard Model.  This guy has a sheathed power weapon.  You will find that they have added a very similar positioning to the new Sternguard box.

This is my Belial model with dual lightening claws.  Not even sure if this is even an allowed combination now but I still really think the model turned out well.  Also some more pics of his back in this post.

Lastly we have my Bannerman from my Honor Guard unit.  Another very basic build where it is all about the right pieces.  I have a whole write up about building honor guard units here.  I think the new Sternguard box would be a good starting point for the unit now that was not there before we I made up mine.

Update: Honorable Mention from Mik for:

 Shroud of the Dead Honor Guard.  I really like most of my honor guard models so I had a tough time choosing. 

Tervigon WIP

As part of my speed building last week for the Apocalypse game I wanted to get a Tervigon in the army. I had three unbuilt fex kits so I got to work. My goal was mainly just to get the basic body assembled and do the greenstuff and arms later.

My conversion is really simple. I essentially just extended the mid section of the fex kit with spure pieces. I then started to fill in the space with random curvy bits just to that there is less greenstuff required.

I used some of the hive node terrain bits from the stealer set to get the places where the termigants will appear.


Once I do the greenstuff I will add another armor plate to the back just facing the other direction to cover the unfinished spine part.

GWpertinent Old School

For GW pertinent's Old School Mini Contest:

These are as old as it gets for my space marines. Metal bodies, plastic arms, old style bolters. If we want to get really old I while keeping in the 40K universe I have epic scale marines and such, but this challenge asks for 40K stuff that is painted so this is the best I can do.

Update: I was selected in the random drawing to get the prize. I will post a picture of it when it arrives and will tell my conversion plans to make him fit in my chapter.

Plastic Sternguard

Here are some examples of the plastic sternguard I have built up. This first group use the bionic eye components to unify them. Most of the heads come from the vehicle accessories but the first one is from the plastic devastator set. Two of the models have veteran shoulder pads.

This next set all have scopes which ties them in with most of the models from the previous set. I also tried a couple of different armor styles with a beakie and a crusader helm here.

This is the combi weapon group and for some reason these guys are all in Mk VIII armor. These guys were mainly built before the new codex as veteran sergeants.

Vanguard Marine

Here is a quick shot of a newly assembled Vanguard Marine. For the recent apoc game, I needed another vangaurd with lightening claw so I made this guy. Pretty standard combining of running legs from the assault marines with the claw from the SM commander box. I did do some cutting of the claw arm at the shoulder joint to change the angle. While the claw up is ok, this gave a much better pose. This vet could be running hard or he could have just sent a slashing blow down across some Orks face. Overal a pretty nice pose for addition to my secondary vanguard squad.

Belial Back Shots

Here are images of the Dark Angel Dreadnought Greaves as shoulder pads. As I said earlier I got this from Matt at ArchAngels but I did mount them the other way with. This choice mainly was determined by the purity seal looking funny on the other arm sort of floating in the air.

Belial Model

Here is the built and based Belial for my Deathwing force. Components are all Plastic: SM Tabard Chest from Black Templars, Black Templar head, Assault Terminator Plastics legs, back and Sergeants claws, Dark Angel Dreadnought Greaves as shoulder pads (Stolen from Matt at ArchAngels). The greenstuff work is poor but fills the gaps in the side and along the collar.

Side view. I tried to make him unique but avoided banners or anything since I only have 5 other assault termis for my normal army, I might be forced to use him just as a normal squad member.

Last Honor Guard

This is hardly even worth posting. Picked up main body of the master of recruits model as my last honor guard. I toned him down compared to the normal model by using a normal bolter and shoulder pad. The backpack is also standard. I used an almost normal helmet. It just has a few rivets along the brow. This is from the Black Templar box. Now that all the 10 members are done I am going to recompile the posts into a bigger and more cohesive series.

WIP: Belial

Here is my work in progress counts as Belial model for my Dusk Hunters Terminator Army. Plastic Termi with a power armor tabard from the Black Templars upgrade box. Idea of using this will a Termi is from Dave Taylor in WD 310. Filed off the templar cross from belt buckle to be replace with a skull logo. The arms are ready to go but I was not careful enough in cutting the pieces so I have some gaps to fill with a little green stuff. If he was not going to have such an open pose I could probably avoid it but his claws are going to be held somewhat up so the joint will be in full view.

The head is also from the Black Templars box. I really liked that box for these type of more unusual bits. If you are getting ready to start a marine force, it might be useful to get one to make your army stand out.

Another Honor Guard

This is the crusader Honor guard member. I kept some of the smaller black templar crosses but removed the big ones from the shoulder pads. I am not totally happy with the sword mounting angle. I changed it up some since I already had 2 Honor guards holding there power weapons out at like eye level with their left hands. This is trying to be more of a rallying pose. "After me lads."

Here is a shot of the backpack. It is dark angels with the dagger holding the skull removed and the logo removed from the back. I forgot to replace it with something else so I will get to that tommorrow. I cannot have that much empty space on the center of the backpack.

Mk IV Honor Guard

Here is the first Honor Guard made from the bits in my new black templar upgrade box. He is significantly less embleshed than the other honor guards but he makes up for it with his unique armor. I have one more head and chest like this which I think will be going to my Vulkan conversion. I noticed in the close ups he needs a little more clean up. Giving credit where credit is due the pose was stolen from WD310 from an Angels of Absolution conversion by John Shaffer.

Side View showing the shealth power weapon.

Shroud of the Dead Honor Guard

Here is the seventh member of my Honor guard unit. He is clearly made up of dark angel veteran parts with a few extras thrown in. In the Sons of Twilight Chapter, full robes are award to sole survivors of units to honor those lost in battle. Survivor guilt of those who have these generally leads them to heroic actions in an attempt to join their fallen comrades. This either leads to a quick end or rapid advance into veteran units. While marines who wear the shrouds of the dead may earn terminator honors they are almost never put into command roles like veteran sergeants or captain lest they lead whole units on suicide missions.

Here you can see that the shoulder pad matches the backpack topper and the holstered bolter for WYSIWYG. The metal power sword is from the veterans MKII box.

A little shrine in the back to close it off.

I just got my black templar upgrade box to make at least 2 more honor guards and probably finish of the master of the deathwing.

You can see more of my assortment of honor guard members on the right the labels section under honor guard. I think each one has its own character.

Remainder of Scout Box

Here is what I did with the other three scouts from my valentines day present. Pretty standard close combat scouts to get my cc scouts up to 10 since I moved several shotgun scouts to a shotguns only squad to cruise around in a Storm.

This gut is the only one unusual where I took the grenade arm from the scout biker box and switch the bolt pistol from standard right handed to left handed in honor of my lefty wife.

My Telion

Here is a quick and dirty Telion conversion. I do not plan to use him much but I wanted to have the option to drop him into a list without dropping the cash for the metal model. Four dollars seems better than fifteen for a model just for an occasional game. I like the eye of vengeance rule and think he might be a good addition for games against Eldar to try to pick out upgrade charcters in aspect warrior squads. If Nobs did not have those pesky 2 wounds he would be good for Orks also.

I mainly just cut up a spare sniper rifle from the scout sniper kit to get the silencer for the barrel and the more detailed scope. I put the cloak bundle on the back to represent the stealth skill and the rocket is there to represent the voice of experience rule. His specially balanced rocket helps the youngins find their target. I want to use a normal space marine head from the commander box but I could just not get it cut down correctly to look right so I just used one from the scout biker box.

Powerfist Shotgun Scout Sergeant

My wife was nice enough to pick up a new box of scouts for me on Valentines Day. Does this guy just say Love or what. With the new codex if you are going to be giving a scout sergeant in a close combat squad a powerfist, he should get a shotgun to go with it. Compared to the bolt pistol it has 2 shots for the loss of AP 5. That is more than a fair trade.

This guy will be joining 4 shotgun Scouts in a Storm in my Shrike list. Mainly a harassing unit with the multimelta hitting the transports and the scouts picking off anyone who gets out. If need be they can fly 12, hop out 2. Fire the shotguns then charge in to pull campers away from objectives.

The Shotgun Powerfist scout is a tougher model to get together from kit bashing. Space Marine powerfists look fine on scouts without the big shoulder pad but getting the right shotgun is harder. This one is from the new scout bike kit and is about the only one in the space marine line that can be used to get the right look easily. A holstered shotgun might also work with something else in the free hand.

Terminator Apothecary

Here is the complete Terminator Apothecary model. In an early post I detailed the arm based on a chainfist. Here I constructed the rest of the model using standard termi parts matching the skull on the knee with the skull on the arm. The stormbolter was stolen from a Black Reach termi. I cut the apothecary accessories from the power armor apothecary front to add here. They probably are not necessary but were not going to used on my command squad biker apothecary since I thought they would get in the way of the seated position.

Here is the side few with the arm and the lamp. I built the lamp using a lamp off a cities of death embleshment with part of a searchlight backing. Originally I was going to not use the searchlight piece and use another part of the cities of death stuff which was a skull on a cylinder but this piece was to close in size to the front of the lamp so the imperfect alignment was to easy to spot.

Next to basing. My current basing theme is a scorched earth theme with the characters often highlight with cities of death bits in the with rubble so he will be getting some extra bits.

Simple Homemade Drop Pods

Now that the drop pod has a normal kit, this project might not be that useful but if you want to make a drop pod battle company for a friendly apoc game it might be helpful. I made up about 10 of these last summer for such a game. Total cost was less than 1 GW pod. I bought a bunch sandcastle molds, drilled vent holes in the top, covered holes with wiremesh, cut the bottem lips off, and spray painted purple to match my army. I just need to get some transfers on them for labels. Simple but about the correct size and excellent line of sight blockers.

Update WIP: Terminator Apothecary

Here is the arm I am working on for my terminator apothecary. Base is a chainfist with a Inquisition shoulder pad where the trim and logo cut off to leave the skull. I think I need to cut down the laser scalpel some more to make it look less like the pistol it started as. I also need to add the controls to the top of the fist with cables running down between the display and the probe which will be part of the smoke launcher. The probe is a scope with part of a krak missile added.

Here is the next stage with some basic controls added to the fist. Next to start the body.

Veterans

So my poll looks to be going to the razorbacks but I needed 2 new vets for an event next weekend so I figured it was fine. First guy is a vanguard sergeant with Relic Blade. My old vanguard sergeant with Relic Blade earned a promotion to the honor guard so I needed a replacement. This is of course jump pack free vanguard. Relic Blade is a champion sword cut at the wrist and mounted at a different angle on a different arm.

Next is a beaky sternguard vet crouching. My vets are generally denoted by color scheme(white trim on shoulder pads). The sternguards often have gun sights and/or bionic eyes.

Next post will probably be a list and then a selection of the bits for the las-plas razorback project.

Shrike

This is my simple counts as Shrike. My goal is not to reproduce the Shrike image but to make a simple version out of the parts I have. Nothing really special. Shrike is actually pretty easy since he probably should not have a lot of extra stuff. Only really interesting thing is that I used the Dark Angels beaky head where the sword is removed. I am considering adding some type of smoke launchers to one of his Talons to represent the See But Not be Seen rule.