Space Marine Review

A couple of days ago I reviewed the new Space Marine videogame over at Santa Cruz Warhammer. You can check out the full review here. Instead of just having a repeat post here, I'll just touch on some pros and cons here and if you're still interested head over to the Santa Cruz site for the whole enchilada.

Pros:

• easy button layout and simple controls
• tons of customization options
• quick and dirty multiplayer
• excellent job of capturing the 40K universe

Cons:

• a little repetitive after a while
• somewhat unengaged storyline
• lack of maps in multiplayer

Space Marine Demo

Screenshots taken directly from my television screen...

I can't speak of the other platforms, but for XBox360'ers out there the demo version of the upcoming Space Marine is out. You can play to save-points, maybe missions but they seemed a little short. One mission is played as the Tactical Marine, the other as an Assault Marine. The quick and dirty breakdown is this; if you paint 40k and you play video games, you'll end up getting this game at one point or another.

Solid shooters are plentiful, let me repeat, PLENTIFUL on the 360 platform. In this respect Space Marine isn't going to give you anything special in that department, you've got better options out there. If you're not a tabletop 40k gamer, this title will still give you a cool storyline that is thought-out and very sci-fi in nature. The setting is rich and detailed with plenty of the grit and grime you would expect.


Where Space Marine shines is where you would expect it to...as a 40k action game. There's something very cool about playing a Space Marine and seeing them do all the things Space Marines do, but animated; running, chopping foes up with chainswords, speaking with serious accents, and the like.

In the first mission you and your battle-brothers find some fallen soldiers, Cadian soldiers! Painted up, err, digitized up to look just like...Cadians, cool! A servo-skull is scanning them and then comes up to the marines, verifies them, and displays a holo-message from an Inquisitor who is holed up and needs assistance. After that you forget the decent but not amazing gameplay, or the not-so-crisp graphics, you are in the 40k universe, bolter blazing.

Outbound Minis

Here's a couple of 40k models that got the shortcut to the front of my queue. Ironically, neither of them will be residing on my shelves, these are export only.

One is an older, third edition Space Marine Librarian updated with some newer gear. He's going to be a Deathwatch Librarian painted up for one of the winners of the Minions of the Monster Master contest that just wrapped up. That's right, just one of many winners!

The second is an old, lead Eldar Harlequin for Tristan of GW Pertinent. He's collecting Eldar Harlequins painted by other people, if you have one laying around paint it up and send it to him. If not, he's got extra Harlequins he will send you to paint up. For this one I'm going with a Death Jester paint scheme.

Assemble the Deathwatch!

After wrapping up the Techmarine the other day I figured it might be a while before I paint any other troopers so I figured a muster shot was in order. I do have three other figures (two regular and one Terminator) to paint up, but they're not even in the HUD so they'll linger a while in the bits bins. Here's the breakdown...

Tactical, Apothecary, and Librarian Ultramarines

Tactical and Techmarine Black Templars

Tactical, Apothecary, and Assault Sons of Minos

Blood Angel and Salamander Tactical Marines

Devastator, Assault, and Tactical Dark Angels

The others I mentioned will get painted up eventually and added here, making for fifteen total Deathwatch troopers and a single Terminator Captain. They are; a White Scars tactical Marine, a Fists (Imperial or Crimson) Assault Marine, and the aforementioned captain whose parent chapter I don't know yet.

Mk6 Deathwatch Techmarine

On the eve of the last Deathwatch RPG game I finished up this figure for one of the players at the table. When rolling up his armor and armor histories he got both the Mark 6 Corvus armor as well as the "xenos foe" history. I don't remember the details exactly but basically his armor has the claw of some alien embedded in it. This old school Techmarine model is perfect for that since it has a Genestealer claw adorning the right shoulder.


Over at Constantly Ricking Obscurity there is an amazingly awesome tutorial on how to make your own servo-arms. It came about a month after I kit-bashed the one you see here, but it's good to know for future reference.


Of all the Deathwatch I figure the Techmarines are the most particular about their equipment, so I kept the backpack/servo-arm and the helmet traditional red. I also painted everything with a lot of wear-and-tear, scratches, dings, and dents. The right pauldron is covered by the Genestealer claw, so you can't see parent chapter livery (this Techmarine is a Black Templar) and the left pauldron looks to be a mass of nuts, bolts, and wires. Not exactly the Deathwatch symbol and crest, but I didn't want to hack up a classic model.

L to R: Librarian, Techmarine, Tactical, Devastator, and Apothecary

Here's the whole five-man team of RPG player character models. There is still one model missing, and that would be Andy's Space Shark assault marine (can't find any pics of it but here's some of his Deathwatch). Our RPG group is a little different from the tabletop group in that most of the RPG guys don't currently paint figures, that's why I painted all of these up for them to use in our Deathwatch sessions.

Standard Template Construction: Rhinos

My track record for getting things done in the hobby field has been utterly abysmal this year. I set out the other day to rectify this by ambitiously jumping straight into not one, not two, but three Rhino APC's for my Dark Angels army.

Regular readers will know even though I roleplay in the 40k universe, have multiple armies for 40k, and read 40k books I don't actually play a whole lot of the game 40k itself. I'll play 5150 or something using 40k models, but the 40k rules and I don't get together too often. So why bother with Rhinos? I still love my Dark Angels, and they deserve some decent transports. Heck, I was even thinking adding another tactical squad while I'm at it!


I lined up the parts and decided to build them assembly line style, and to the chagrin of some of you out there, I decided to do quick builds and have zero opening hatches, zero magnetized doo-dads, and no lowering ramps or what-not. As you can see I did have the respective tactical squad sergeants meet me to go over the construction process.


So far they were approving of what I was doing...


More inspection, this time in the hulls...


This is what I started with, a big ole pile o' sprues. I didn't have the instructions, I didn't even have the boxes to use as visual reference, and the last time I built a Rhino they came three to a box! Thanks to the STC from the title however I figured and fumbled my way through the process rather quickly though. As we speak all three are outside drying after their first coat of primer. I foresee a lot of dry-brushing in my future!

Deathwatch Kill-Team: Name Those Battle Brothers!

The first five Deathwatch troopers are done of my big batch. I have no idea how I chose these five, because they're not a squad by themselves, they're actually from all three kill-teams I had devised in the original planning. These guys were a blast to paint up, but the pics didn't turn out quite like I had hoped, the Black Templar for instance looks way too shiny when in person he's really not. I was going for a semi-gloss look to the armor however.

From the title of the post you might be wondering how we're going to name these guys. I stole this idea form the Sons of Taurus blog (which is really cool and should be checked out for sure) and I thought I'd try it here. SoT invited readers to name members of his Traitor Guard army, I got to name the Rough Rider tramplemaster "Gyro", which was cool.

Well, let's do the same kind of thing here, but there's a slight catch. You have to have had, or currently have, an army of the Battle Brother's particular chapter to name him. For instance, if you've got a Black Templar army, ahem BJ, you'd have first shot at naming the above Black Templar. If this is too restrictive, we'll just open it up to whoever wants to name a guy, but chapter holders get first dibs. Just leave a comment below, say who you are, what chapter you represent on the tabletop, and what the Battle Brother's new name is going to be. It can be whatever you want as like as it sounds, you know, stalwart defending soldier of the vast dominion of man, kind of name, no "Sgt. McFluffy McFlufferson" or whatever.


Apothecary: Ultramarine


Tactical Marine: Ultramarine


Tactical Marine: Salamander


Tactical Marine: Blood Angel Brother Malach


Tactical Marine: Black Templar


The shoulder pads are what make a Deathwatch team so fun, and even though everyone has the same color armor, you still get lots of variety here. As you can see, I'm sticking to chapters whose decals I have access to, I'm not feeling up to free-handing this stuff. This does mean I'll miss out some of the more flavorful chapter icons, like Space Sharks!


Not only did I try to individualize them by shoulder pads, but I also tried to paint each Battle Brother's gear in different and unique ways. Left to right up top; the Blood Angel has a short sword in a red scabbard, the Ultramarine has leather pouches and a holster, but the Salamander has green pouches, an assortment of grenades, and a Kroot pistol which I'm passing off as some kind of dueling laspistol trophy from some past campaign.


I only had a single apothecary backpack, nothing else, so I had to get creative for the rest of the medic's (left) accoutrements. An ammo missile pack, painted up to match the pack, came out looking not half bad and can certainly pass off as syringes and the like.

For the Black Templar (right) I went with white gear to match his shoulder pad. I really like the way these turned out too, it's a great contrast to the black armor, yet is so simple to pull off. The combat knife is from second edition, and the backpack is from the Games Day Emperor's Champion model that came out a while back.


Here's a shot of all seven Deathwatch members so far. As you can see, in addition to individualized gear, I also mixed of the colors of the boltguns for each trooper as well to further each trooper's distinction. This pic includes the most recent five I just painted up, Brother Elyas for the upcoming RPG, and my original test model. It's doubtful these guys will actually see action in an 'official' game of 40k. I intend to use them as PC avatars in upcoming games of Deathwatch, as well as "impossible odds" type special forces scenarios using the 5150 rules or the like. I still have my copy of Inquisitor as well, maybe dust those off a bit as well. By the way, go to the Specialist Games section of GW, and those Inquisitor rules are free!

Project: Deathwatch

This summer Fantasy Flight releases the third installment in their 40k RPG series, and they've saved the best for last; Space Marines. Not just Space Marines, but the militant arm of the Ordo Xenos, the Deathwatch. This is actually a smart choice because if a player has a certain hankering to play a specific chapter, like Ultramarines or Space Wolves (or Space Sharks!) they can, since Deathwatch teams are comprised of various chapter troopers.


This fellow is a test trooper I did about a week or so ago. I just dug around in my bits box, apparently from the primer on him, he was fated to be an Ultramarine at one point. Well, he just got re-purposed. Sure, he's an assault sergeant, but that's all right, I put on a standard MkVII backpack, and a stock bolter. The fact he had a power fist was just icing on the cake. Since he was a sgt., he also had a funky targeter on his helmet, which goes to help characterize the DW. Finally was his bolter, which I affixed a scope. Since I'm fresh out of real scopes, I just cut away a tubular piece of sprue and used that as a makeshift scope.


I made this one a member of the Dark Angels, since I already have a big horde of DA, I figured I could always use him as a hero or leader in their ranks. I'm slowly running out of my Rogue Trader era decals, but I figured this guy was characterful enough to deserve one. I'm also about out of the DA veteran sgt. decals, like what you see on his leg here.


My progress so far...

I'm going a slightly different route with these guys too. First of all, I'm making a single squad of ten troopers, I'll do the breakdown below. Add in my dark Angel test fig, I guess that's eleven. The other thing is that I'm not making these primarily, if at all, for 40k itself. They'll be for the RPG of course, which I've also volunteered to run for the guys, since Andy been gracious enough to run Dark Heresy. I also intend to use them in small-scale skirmish battles, but with third party rulesets such as 5150, Flying Lead, and the like.

The other big thing is that I'm going to try to assemble these guys, literally, piece by piece, bit by bit, and I'm going to try to get all of those bits by trading and what-not. Have you heard of the Santa Cruz Warhammer Barter Bucket? Yes, it's the evolution of my old bucket. Anyway, the folks over there host a bits trading community, and I've been relying on trading my parts for Deathwatch ones, or in many cases, just people's generosity.


Believe it or not, these are the ten troopers laid out in all of their pieces. As you can see, I am missing many bits in order to make even a complete model. I'm focusing on the trickier parts first, but there will come a time when I need simple stuff, ahem, like legs.

Here's the team build/breakdown:

• Veteran Sergeant, storm bolter
  
• Librarian, force weapon and bolt pistol
  
• Apothecary, chainsword and bolter
  
• Techmarine, funky harness thingie
  
• Devastator, plasma cannon
  
• x2 Assault Marines, jump packs, power weapon, bolt pistol
  
• x3 Tactical Marines, bolters
  

The tricky bits...

Being RPG figs, I don't know who's going to want to play what, but I do know each member of the ten-man team needs to be wholly individual, even if it's two tactical marines equipped the same, standing right next to each other. That's where these dang heads come into play. Do you know how many different, helmet-less Space Marines heads are out there? Not many if you want to keep variety. Thanks to the new Space Wolf sprues, you can get a bunch of different heads there, but they're all along the same feral vein. I've got a Space Wolf head or two, but I've tried to collect a whole bunch of different heads too. What you see above is quite a selection I've received/traded for so far. Things are definitely taking shape with my Deathwatch, so look for more to come. I also want to thank some peeps so far for the parts so far. I've received a lot of emails, the bucket works great!, so there's more people to thank in the future, it's just that I've already received the bits in the post from the following folks:

Extremis Diabolous

GW Pertinent

Sons of Twilight

Those Wacky Space Wolves!

More archived TSoaLR goodness...

In my "must have unit" post a while back I had to do some considerable poking around the Turn Signals archive for those scout clips. I ran across this one, and although it came out a whopping six years ago, I thought it à propos to post it now given the release (and subsequent excitement) over the latest (and greatest?) Space Wolves codex.

Must Have Unit: Space Marine Scouts

"Take the shot, take the shot!"

There's a call to arms for a collaborative post From the Warp regarding "must have" units. These aren't tactical or game-winning units, but units that you personally try to work in every time, regardless if they're technically points winners or not. Tau Vespids are definitely one such unit that comes to mind, wow, they look awesome, and their fluff is even cooler, but have you ever fielded them? They are not "for the greater good"!

For me, it's the Space Marine Scouts. Space Marines are great, they always have been, but Scouts are the "cooler" version of said greatness. They're tough, but not crazy 3+ power armor tough, but they're still considered "marines". In codex chapters, scouts are the rookies of the chapter who have to earn their way into a suit of standard power armor and one of the more veteran companies. In this way it's neat to think of captains (or chapter masters) slogging it out in scout armor as a FNG at one point in their career.

Strike From the Sky, Brothers!

Andy had pointed this out and it's just too cool to not post here. Enjoy!

The Sons of Bartemaeus

With the release of an apparently "fixed" fifth edition of Warhammer 40k on the horizon, I decided to throw in my lot with a new army. Before I jump in with what and why, a little background information is in order as well. Back in the day, especially the Rogue Trader day, which Ray and I both played during, homemade chapters weren't just a trend, but almost a necessity if you wanted to play Marines. What follows is just that.

During the thirty second founding of the Adeptus Astartes the Sons of Bartemaeus were born. They were a successor chapter of the Crimson Fists and shared their gene seed and organizational parameters with at least a dozen other such successor chapters of the time. The Sons of Bartemaeus were named for their Chapter Master himself, who was said to be a direct descendant of the Primarch Rogal Dorn of the originating patriarch chapter, the Imperial Fists. The Sons of Bartemaeus served with all the resourcefulness and honor as befits any loyal Space Marine chapters, but they would soon become lost over time and all but forgotten.

[It should be noted that the original title of this 32nd founding chapter was the Disciples of Borris. The actions listed herein, at this point in the timeline, were when the chapter was still identified as the Disciples of Borris. With Imperial records being so hard to uncover, and taking so much time to decipher, much information is confusing, if not outright lost. Furthermore, the chapter master Bartemaeus is often denoted in Imperial records as 'Bartimus'.]


Raw footage of the Sons of Bartemaeus on the Plains of Ka-Zath, during the Battle of Nocturne on the Imperial Agriculture world of Iocanthus. Note the early model MkVII armor alongside an even more archaic MkVI missile launcher.


More Battle of Nocturne footage; here we see early model MkVII armor mixed with even older Rogue Trader era MkVI armor. Note the lone MkVIII trooper in the rear with a slightly modified paint scheme. This suggests the Sons of Bartemaeus never fully upgraded their chapter, even well after their founding, yet still had direct contact with Imperial supply.

It was shortly after their campaign on Iocanthus that the Sons of Bartemaeus withdrew to their home sector to consolidate their chapter's strength. Their rest would be interrupted however. Three systems from their home world, on the insignificant moon of Rastus Jendbock, a major chaos following was making itself known and a planet scale revolt was in progress. The Dark Angels were called in to assess the situation, and commit Exterminatus if need be. Once the depth of chaos was revealed, reinforcements were needed. The closest chapter, the Sons of Bartemaeus, were the first to arrive.

The fighting was fierce, and although the two chapters were immeasurably outnumbered, they held their ground awaiting more reinforcements. Inexplicably, in the third week of fighting, the Dark Angels chapter withdrew wholesale from the planet, ignoring all hails from the Sons of Bartemaeus, even going as far as neutralizing a Sons of Bartemaeus battle frigate in orbit when it moved to block the egress of three Dark Angels battle barges. The Sons of Bartemaeus would cite the Dark Angels for heresy and label their act as a betrayal to the Emperor himself. These communiques however would not surface for hundreds of years. Later records would also reveal that the Dark Angels were privy to an unusually large band of the Fallen, led by Cypher himself surfacing in a nearby system, and their zeal and honor-bound devotion to destroying these exiles superseded their current mission. They would later claim that inbound White Scars and Angels Sanguine chapters were calculated to arrive only the next day after their departure and the Sons of Bartemaeus were not abandoned. In retribution for the Sons of Bartemaeus firing upon their own ships, they would file a petition to have the chapter looked into on grounds of Heresy.

Outnumbered by a planet full of chaos-infused militia and PDF forces, led by a demogogue who declared himself the planetary warlord, the Sons of Bartemaeus would meet their alleged end. The planet itself became inaccessible due to warp storms enshrouding the sector, and whatever reinforcements were to arrive would never see dirtside. The bulk of the armored forces of the Sons of Bartemaeus were led into a cunning trap, freezing them in their entirety in one of Rastus Jendbock's vast nitrogen seas. Large swathes of the chapter's infantry were slowly ground down in a number of theaters that included every imaginable environment from hive to jungle, it seemed that the chaos gods themselves were reshaping the very planet.

The fighting came to its climax as Bartemaeus himself led a daring raid against the bastion of the warlord. Mountains of the dead were strewn across the city streets, forming their own topography of decay and misery, the losses both sides suffered were high. At long last, Bartemaeus faced off against the warlord, a spiteful monster that could barely be called human anymore, being so imbued with the ruinous powers of chaos. Their clash was titanic, it raged for the better of two days as chaos claw shredded the rune-etched terminator armor of Bartemaeus. In turn, Bartemaeus' power sword sang through the air and connected, time and time again, with the warlord's bulk, rending chunks of flesh, chitin, and carapace from the despot. The chapter master took the left eye and wickedly barbed tail of the warlord with surgically precise and clean cuts with his power sword. The warlord, in turn, tore Bartemaeus' right arm from its socket in a mangled wound of muscle and bone. The survivors on both sides held their weapons at their sides, enthralled by the melee, and stood by one another in the rubble strewn streets, watching with awe.

There would be no further trickery or foul play; the warlord simply bested Bartemaeus. There weren't any defiant last words, or curses; just an audible crack of his terminator armor that signaled the end of the chapter master. The rest of the Sons of Bartemaeus, those not already ensnared or captured, were quickly rounded up and detained. The fate of Bartemaeus was not over, for he was a Space Marine, one of the Emperor's finest, and death does not come so easily.

The daemon-warlord put the broken, but still-living body of Bartemaeus upon a central spire, a gleaming spike, in the center of the city, a square where the fighting between the two giants leveled buildings the day before. Bartemaeus was impaled through his back and his body hung limp, one arm missing, facing the night sky, his slow-dying eyes forced to gaze at the stars; stars that would never yield his salvation, his redemption, or his brothers-in-arms with reinforcements. It took decades for the near-primarch to truly die, so resilient was he. All the while the forces of chaos grew. His living tomb was made into a mass grave all around the base of the spire with the fallen of his chapter, further testament to how far they had fallen. He called to the stars for the light of the Emperor to save him, for years he did this, and was answered only with silence. The marines of the chapter were dead, imprisoned, or lost to the nitrogen seas, frozen below its surface; their leader, the mighty Bartemaeus himself, eventually drew his last breath.

Their story does not end here however...