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For some reason that's not entirely clear even to me, I thought that collecting and painting enough models to play some Advanced Space Crusade might be a good idea. Here's step one:


My plan is this: collect enough guys for a 600-point Raid - in ASC terms, that's a smallish game, which would probably take only a couple hours to get through. To that end, I think I'll need the following.

Space Marines: 600 points
Commander in terminator armor
Scout squad
5-man Marine squad with a plasma gun
Terminator squad

...and now I have everything I need but the Commander. I'm thinking I may get him by buying a terminator assault squad, which would give me enough models to field any weapons loadout I needed in a single terminator squad, with a single dude left over to be the commander. The terminator kit includes some commander-y bits, but on the other hand I wouldn't be able to field 2 terminator squads simultaneously. I'll think about that.

Collecting for the Tyranids is a bit trickier, because they get models randomly from a pool and can get reinforcements. They start with 400 points, which means 10 "blips", so I think I'm going to aim to collect and paint a dozen blips' worth of Tyranids. I'm looking at the following

Tyranids: 400 points (10 starting blips plus 2 reinforcement blips at 40 points a pop)
3 tyranid warriors with deathspitters
8 genestealers (they're 2 to a blip)
10 termagants (they're also 2 to a blip)

...plus I got some orks cheap off e-bay to use as mind slaves.

Next step is assembling 5 scouts, 5 marines and 5 terminators, then I'll get to painting!

So here's what I'm thinking about painting.

I gave some thought to what chapter my Marines should be. Something vanilla? Resurrect my own White Templars chapter? But then it occurred to me that the best choice for Marines for Advanced Space Crusade was clearly the Scythes of the Emperor, a chapter that features prominently in the game fiction, where it was first introduced. So the Scythes it is! It helps that a) they're an Ultramarines successor chapter, so I can use the squad marking decals from the box sets, and b) their chapter symbol is relatively straightforward.

So I made up a basic color scheme: Dandy! Sergeants and squad leaders get yellow helmets, sergeants additionally reverse the colors on shoulder pads, veterans and terminators get white helmets, bang.

But! (And here's more proof that I'm kind of anal.) I do like the yellow elbow and knee pads, but some varieties of armor don't have knee pads. I could either:
-Just leave the greaves entirely black on guys with no knee pads. (Follows the paint scheme, but leaves some dudes looking drab from the waist down.) They'd look something like this: Dull-o!
-Paint the greaves entirely yellow on guys with no knee pads only. (Also could be said to follow the paint scheme, but leaves some dudes and not some other dudes looking flashy from the waist down.)
-Paint everybody's greaves yellow. (Fiddles a bit with the paint scheme, allows me to be consistent across all armor patterns.) Looks like this: Hmm.

On the chaps with no knees, how about a nice big symbol of some kind? Heraldry, or just a vertical split scheme?

me_in_japan wrote:On the chaps with no knees, how about a nice big symbol of some kind? Heraldry, or just a vertical split scheme?

Hmm, I'd been hoping to keep it as regular as possible across all permutations of armor. I'll have to give it a think.

Anyway, all my dudes are assembled:

(And man, are the plastic terminators ever a nice kit.)

Power armor Marines' backpacks are staying off, as they'll be yellow, and guns are staying off so I can get at the chest eagles. Tonight I'll put sand down on the bases, and drill out gun barrels if I get really bored. I don't really have the materials (or skills) I'd need to make cool hive-ship-interior bases, so I'm going to go with my standard generic base decoration and be prepared to re-base them if inspiration strikes.

Depending on how many bases you need, you could either sculpt some really simple squidgy-bits bases (green stuff just kinda softly smoothed into organic forms) or some more complex ones with teeth and sphincters and whatnot, which you could then cast up using resin. Or, you could just buy a bunch of nid bases online.

me_in_japan wrote:Depending on how many bases you need, you could either sculpt some really simple squidgy-bits bases (green stuff just kinda softly smoothed into organic forms) or some more complex ones with teeth and sphincters and whatnot, which you could then cast up using resin. Or, you could just buy a bunch of nid bases online.

Yeah, I did take a look at some, but they're a leetle bit more pricey than I'm looking for at this stage. I will probably eventually rebase, but for now I'll just go generic, I think.

Also: while waiting for the glue to dry on my bases, I put together some orkses, to use as mind slaves.

These guys are totally getting the dip, so there won't be much to say about 'em.

Gotta love mind slaves for an excuse to include some other models! Chaos space marines and grots are also options, so I may get some of them eventually, but my current list-thinking doesn't need 'em.

First test mini for the Scythes - probably more or less how they're going to turn out. I need to pay more attention to the eyes, and could probably stand to bring up the edges of the armor plates a skosh. On the other hand, pretty much however much I bring them up, they'll be drowned out by the yellow and by the satin finish my sealer gives them, so it may just be fine as it is.

Looks very nice!

Speaking as someone who has painted a couple of marines in his lifetime, that test mini is looking pretty good.

If I may offer a couple of suggestions.
1. Mold lines, you really dont need them. (sorry, pet peeve of mine).
2. The piping around the joints, particularly the back of the knees but also elbows, wrists and hips is an easy way to add some extra colour to the mini and break up the black armour a bit.

Other than that, keep up the good work. I am looking forward to seeing them done. I will bring the nids you requested along to Joshin (Please remind me the day before as I will forget).