All the Legions!

[DrBored]

I've been looking at 30k pretty intently. It seems like every other day I'm on the Forgeworld site looking at those gorgeous models, trying to justify the purchase. But even if I could do that, I would have no idea which Legion I want to start!

So I decided to embark on a little project that I think will be fun to do and cool to show people. I'm going to build and paint a marine from one of each of the main 18 Legions!

I bought one box of Space Marine Tacticals, and one box of Chaos Marines, and have already divvied out parts to create models that I think well-represent their legions like so:

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Yep, I have one little baggy for each of the 18 Legions, plus one for Black Templar, and one for Crimson Slaughter, as the two extra supported chapters/warbands that GW seems to keep around. I've given each model a set of weapons and armor that I feel fits the theme of that chapter, like the Heavy Bolter to the Iron Warrior, and the Plasma gun to the Dark Angel, and of course the Flamer to the Salamander.

Next, to make sure I can put as much detail and work into these as possible, I assemble them sparsely and use a combination of a block of foam from wal-mart, paper clips, and picture-mounting sticky tack to assemble them like so:

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This way, I can easily handle and paint each piece, and then glue them all together after they're all painted. The one here is my Raven Guard, since I figured ALL BLACK would be pretty easy to paint. For flavor, I gave this model the Corvus armor and beaky head, and put a scope on his bolter.

Currently, my selection of paints is pretty limited. I figure I can start off with the Raven Guard, Black Templar, Iron Warrior, and White Scar marines first. I prime them all gray, so whether I'm going lighter or darker, the difficulty will be about the same, and gray provides a nice medium so lighter colors shouldn't be too painful to work with.

I'll take more pics as I finish the Raven Guard. Unlike my Space Sharks, which I rushed to get done, I'm going to take my time on these, and may even try to freehand the chapter symbols.

[Kirsten]

do what I do, just collect all the legions.

[Houghten]

We don't all have our own warehouse :p

[Kirsten]

you don't need a warehouse. you just need to fill all the cupboards and drawers...

[YorkNecromancer]

It's worth remembering: according to HH volume 3, you can have a completely legal 'Istvaan survivor' list made up of absolutely any models from any chapters as long as your opponent does the same. So if you want to have, say, an army with Iron Hands tacticals because you like the chest armour, but are desperate to get some Palantine Blades (because who wouldn't?) you can do that and field them as a Loyalist Force. Not to mention, squads don't have to even be full-sized (due to casualties), so you can literally build whatever force you like.

It's primarily designed for campaign play, but they've made real efforts to ensure that you can build your HH army out of whatever you think is cool. It's not like that's unbalanced either, because 'pure' armies taken from just one Legion get a stack of really rather powerful benefits that a mixed Legion force would lose.

HH really does have superb internal balance.

[DrBored]

It's worth remembering: according to HH volume 3, you can have a completely legal 'Istvaan survivor' list made up of absolutely any models from any chapters as long as your opponent does the same. So if you want to have, say, an army with Iron Hands tacticals because you like the chest armour, but are desperate to get some Palantine Blades (because who wouldn't?) you can do that and field them as a Loyalist Force. Not to mention, squads don't have to even be full-sized (due to casualties), so you can literally build whatever force you like.

It's primarily designed for campaign play, but they've made real efforts to ensure that you can build your HH army out of whatever you think is cool. It's not like that's unbalanced either, because 'pure' armies taken from just one Legion get a stack of really rather powerful benefits that a mixed Legion force would lose.

HH really does have superb internal balance.

But Istvaan didn't involve forces like the Thousand Sons or the Imperial Fists, so what do you do if you want to throw some of them in there too?

[Tyrendian]

But Istvaan didn't involve forces like the Thousand Sons or the Imperial Fists, so what do you do if you want to throw some of them in there too?

remove the word Isstvaan and just call it a survivor force? I mean who's going to stop you (that was gonna agree to playing against the survivors in the first place)?

[YorkNecromancer]

Exactly. You can only do an Istvaan force at the moment because that's all that's out.

Give it time and they'll apply the same system to every Legion - you'll get Prospero survivors and the like.

[Kirsten]

there could be observers and the like from other legions on Istvaan. Maybe a thousand sons marine was being held by one of the loyalist forces present because they were suspicious, and he ends up fighting alongside them. the Imperial Fists had sent a fleet, maybe they had a forward recon unit present who took part. Personally I would say take whatever legions you want, easy enough to think up a reason for them being there. Reading through the heresy novels there are always squads, companies and individuals on secondment somewhere else.

[Ivarr]

I don't know about 1 marine from each legion, but for the longest time I have been thinking of an army (generic SM) with each squad in different chapter colors just to keep the monotony out of painting.

I think you should do it!

[DrBored]

I don't know about 1 marine from each legion, but for the longest time I have been thinking of an army (generic SM) with each squad in different chapter colors just to keep the monotony out of painting.

I think you should do it!

I thought about doing that for Chaos Marines, since it would make a little more sense, though I suppose a loyalist side may have a coalition representing a crusade of multiple chapters taking the battle to a campaign, so that would make sense too.

[DrBored]

Really sorry about the crappy pictures here guys. Trying to practice my camera-fu but I don't own a decent camera yet, so my phone is the best that I can do...

But, here's the Raven Guard, finished except for the chapter symbol and the base! My big mistake here was rushing the model and working without paint retardant and better brushes. I just went straight out of the GW pot and used some 3 dollar brushes from Wal-Mart that are already pretty worn out after painting all my Space Sharks. As a result, the white is really chunky and some other parts aren't as nice and neat as I would like. I'm not going to even try doing the chapter symbol until after I get some better brushes and retardant, so for now, this will do.

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Next I gotta do the base, which will probably be relatively quick and simple, and then I'll move to the Black Templar!

TBH, I wanted to do the Raven Guard first so I could use his scope as an excuse to use him as a Vindicare Assassin counts-as.

[DrBored]

Got some progress done! I've built a few of the others that I'll be able to paint with my currently available paints, and I've also completed the Iron Hands model! I tried to keep the model as close to some of the GW examples. Getting the white on the gun was a pain in the butt, but overall I'm happy with the effect, and it's not as chunky as the Raven Guard's mask, thankfully...

Hope you like! Next one will probably be the Blood Angels to get some varied color. Iron Hands and Raven Guard look awful similar...

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Again, sorry for crappy picture quality. I'll take new pics of the Raven Guard and Iron Hands model in the daytime to try to catch some of that detail.

I'm basing all of the models the same as my Space Sharks. Super simple, keeps me focused on the colors of the model, and allows me to use the models in my Space Marine army if I want without losing much coherency!