Warhammer 40,000 – Space Marine Veterans

With the prospect of a game of Warhammer 40,000 against Coronasan’s Blood Angels planned, and a points limit of 75 power set for the encounter, I have been forced to limit myself to only 3 Imperial Knights in my army.  That however leaves me with 7 points to fill from somewhere else, because sadly no Imperial Knight unit is available for less than 9 power…

Time to fall back on the old faithful Space Marines.  Mine are a chapter that was started over 15 years ago when GW released their first range of spray paints.  I undercoated all my existing plastic and metal Space Marines, along with all my vehicles, in ‘Shadow Grey’.  I later found out that the pots of brush on Shadow Grey were a completely different colour to the spray paint.  A consequence of that poor paint choice has been that I have had a devil of a time painting them since then. I actually dread painting the miniatures as errors cannot be corrected easily, and new parts or figures can’t be added to the existing units without them being painted in a completely different colour…

The answer was to paint any new Space Marine units that I added to the army in a completely different colour.  Then add a dash of that colour to the older figures to either cover up errors or to help link them to their newer brethren.  As the new Space Marines are bright yellow (likely to be another poor colour choice, only time will tell) I have painted the helmets of the Sergeants in these units yellow to both tie them in and show their Veteran Sergeant status.

I only needed 5 Veteran Sternguard Marines for the 7 power that I had to fill.  However, I ended up painting up 11 men, as that was how many I found in the old Space Marines box that matched the look I wanted and the unit profile.

(Please note: I am not a traditionalist when it comes to GW Space Marine armies, so these figures are armed in a haphazard manner that can be loosely translated to: if they have two guns its likely to represent a combi weapon profile of some sort… Anyone who does not play 40k will have no idea what I am talking about at this point I suspect!)

Why on earth did I paint 11 figures you may ask, especially when the minimum size for the unit is 5 men and the maximum is 10..?   Well, that way I can field 2 units of 5 men, each with their Veteran Sergeants wearing yellow helmets, or one larger 10 man unit with only one Veteran Sergeant. Fielding the larger unit leaves me with a yellow helmeted chap that can be played as either a Lieutenant, Captain or General Orificer if I have the points spare…  Simple…