Monday 21 April 2014

Necessity really is the mother of invention

Progress has been crawling along on my Blood Angels but I finally have enough done to a "tabletop standard" to start playing some small games.  So far my force consists of; 2 five man Tactical Squads, 1 five man Terminator Squad, and Dante.  The only real issue I have with playing with this is that Dante is the wrong leader to use.

Originally I painted Dante as my leader because my first 3 squads were going to be; Assault Marines, Sanguinary Guard and Death Company with Jump Packs so Dante seemed like the perfect officer model.  Unfortunately following my fiasco with a bad batch of plastic cement last year those three squads all went directly in the trash and I started off by painting a bunch of units who will be walking to the fight.  With that being the case I don't really want a jump pack equipped leader.  The dilemma for me is exacerbated by the fact that I still plan to have an army that features a lot of jump troops when I'm done so I don't really want to buy another foot fig just to fill in while my army is under 1000 points (which if I'm being honest means I would only end up using that figure in a handful of games).  Whatever shall I do?

I had a similar problem with a much different root YEARS ago when the worldwide Eye Of Terror campaign was kicking off.  I was determined to play with the new Cadian models in the campaign but the hitch was that for the start of the campaign the only new Cadian models available were the basic troop box, so no heavy weapons and no officers.

Obviously conversions were the answer and I've got to say looking back I'm really happy this was a "problem" at the time or I probably wouldn't have bothered doing conversions for my Cadian army and I was ultimately very happy with how they turned out.

My Colonel was a simple head and hand swap.  I took the second generation Storm Trooper Sgt (now known as the Inquisitorial Storm Troopers) and chopped off his head and Plasma Pistol hand.  I replaced his head with a first generation Storm Trooper head (love the beret!) and the pointing hand from an Empire Cannon crewman.


For reasons I don't re-call I had also stockpiled a bunch of Scout Heavy Bolter arms so I was able to equip a platoon of Guardsmen with those to toughen up my squads.


Fast-forward to now.  I need an officer to lead my Blood Angels army through it's early battles, in the depths of my backlog I found a 2006 Games Day Space Marine Veteran still hiding in his blister pack.  I ditched his Storm-Bolter arm (which to me just looks awkwardly posed) and replaced it with a Plasma Pistol arm and a fancy Blood Angel shoulder pad.  Hopefully a day or two from now he'll be ready to lead the troops into their first battle!


I should probably mention the only downside to every time I decide to 'temporarily substitute something that fig ends up staying in my army for YEARS.  That Guard Colonel you saw....he's lead my Cadians in every game they're played in for 10+ years.

-Jay

4 comments:

  1. Nothing wrong with a touch of history... over 10 years of combat experience means he is probably one of the longest 'surviving' officers in the history of the guard.

    Plus it is cool to see that old Games Day Space Marine out again, I'm sure I have mine kicking around somewhere in the boxes of forgotten toys...

    Captain on foot with a power fist. Ballsy. :D

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    1. I'm sort of assuming that when playing sub-1000 point games I'll probably play on a smaller than usual surface with a lot of extra terrain so hopefully the Power Fist will get used once in awhile.
      My bigger problem is that the current Blood Angel rules don't allow heavy or special weapons in 5 man Tac squads so all my light anti-armour work will need to get done by my 2 sergeant's plasma pistols or my Terminator squad's Assault Cannon.
      ....should keep things interesting....

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    2. I suppose at 1000points it is a totally different game, and on a 4x4 board your Terminators can always walk over an punch any armour to death.

      I've been a long time subscriber to the school of minimum wargear and more toy soldiers, but lately I've been thinking more and more that I'm sacrificing flavour...

      Looking forward to hearing how these turn out!

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  2. Tonight these guys play game 1 against the forces of Chaos! I can't wait!

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