Attacking the Carcharodons

So, in a group of great painters and modellers, why am I here?

Well, I have a never-really-started army sitting in a crate, and this seems like the perfect driver to get them assembled, painted and on the battlefield! I've spent the last couple of years using Grey Knights and Necrons, and also I've changed how I paint up my armies from using a Dipping technique to waving an airbrush at stuff.

I've done photo-logs of my previous armies;
Tau
Blood Angels
Skaven
Grey Knights
Necrons

...and I'd like to think I've improved, so the new army is planned to be a good, flexible force that looks good on the battlefield, and can be used in a number of ways...so that suggests that a Space Marine force is the way to go.

For my background, I'm diving into the Forgeworld Badab books, and will build up an attack force of Carcharodons Astra/Space Sharks. This means a Space Marines codex list with a reliance on close-quarters fighting. The chapter are known for their older levels of equipment, having been sent out on deep-space patrol not long after the Horus Heresy. To that end I'm going to be making plentiful use of Forgeworld items, with my base-level power armour variant being Mark V Heresy Armour. Carcharodons have a few signature items...lightning claw equipped terminators, more scouts than normal, and usage of drop-pods. I've got several items that were bought but not used for my Blood Angels and Grey Knights, so these items will be inducted into the new force.

What I have already in the crate-o-stuff, or partly assembled is;

• 2 x 10-man Tactical Squads (Mark V Armour, with Sergeants in Mark III)
• 1 x 10-man Assault Squad (Mark V Armour, with Sergeant in Mark III)
• 1 x 10-man Cataphractii Terminators (with weapon options for Lightning Claws, Thunder Hammers and Storm Bolters)
• 1 x 5-man Assault Terminators
• 1 x 5-man Scout Squad (Sniper Rifles)
• 1 x 8-man Scout Bikers
• 2 x Deimos Pattern Rhinos
• 3 x Drop Pods
• 1 x Storm Raven
• 2 x Medics
• 1 x Tyberos the Red Wake (HQ)

I've yet to finalise a colour scheme (I should probably hurry up on that). I'd like to use the Mako Shark as an inspiration, and using an airbrush build up a light-dark blue fade from the feet of the model up. As part of that I also plan to use some sawtooth masks, to give a slightly more aggressive look to it. My first goal will be doing some test models.

I'm also well-known for magnetising my models...I find this is really useful, not just for allowing you to re-equip and swap units around, but also for painting, as you can get arms/backpacks out of the way. I'll do a post and demo on how I go about magnetising Space Marine models, as with the right tools it can be done easily, and is invisible.

First up in January for me will be a Tactical Squad, and a Medic. I want to hold off on doing Tyberos until I have the Cataphractii done, and I also have a couple of other bits of painting to do (namely a campaign map of ~200 Planetary Empire tiles, and a couple of Necron items for an event in April...)

Pete