Chaos Snipers

So as may have been mentioned before, I'm pretty sure I have ADD. As I've been slowing working on painting my first squad of Grey Knight Terminators as time allows my mind started wandering and thinking about my (mostly unpainted) Chaos Space Marines. Thinking about how they need a cohesive theme and for me to settle on a paint scheme, I thought back to my favorites from the 2nd/3rd Edition Days - Iron Warriors. With my mind wandering a little further I thought about also constructing and converting some of the loyalist Space Marines I just have laying around (back when Grey Knights could use Inducted Marines that was going to be my plan when I finally built them) that I wanted to give use to and then the answer jumped out to me: Counts As!

The rage of the internet 40k community is currently "counts as" armies. Take one army, in my case Chaos Space Marines, and then still within reason and WYSIWYG having them count as another army. Essentially allowing you to play as two different armies. The Iron Warriors are the Traitor Legion known best for breaking sieges and using technology over mutations, as well as capturing vehicles. So my idea is to start painting up my Chaos as Iron Warriors with an eye towards having a Counts As Space Marines army, which I can use some of their cool toys such as the Ironclad Dreadnought I have and maybe picking up some Land Speeders.

Which leads me to today's post, I have a small unit of 5 Space Marine Snipers constructed. I'd definitely want to use them, but there's no real precedent in the fluff for Chaos Space Marine Scouts. So how to make them more Iron Warriors?

Cybernetics, of course!

So I took my scout bearing the squad's missile launcher and lopped off his bracing leg and pulled out a box of some Necron Warriors that have been laying around. Bam! Cyberleg.

Stumpy

My plan is to try to find a way to work some of the Necron limbs into each guy, they won't be the prettiest conversions as in many cases the stuff I was cutting off was already glued on and didn't pop off cleanly. Then to paint them up in Iron Warriors colors and maybe some kind of shifty Tzeentch themed cloak colors to represent magical camo cloaks instead of the technological ones loyalists use.

Grey Knights Make Planetfall

Games Workshop Advance Orders are generally supposed to arrive at your house on the Thursday or Friday of their release week, so I was getting kind of antsy on Thursday night when I hadn't even gotten a shipping or tracking email regarding mine. Called up on Friday and found out that one of the special characters I had ordered wasn't actually releasing for another two weeks after the general Grey Knights release. Figures, right? So I had the customer service rep (I really miss the days when they referred to themselves as Trolls) delete that dude from the order and it would go out first thing Monday. But of course in the meantime I have four days off during which I had planned on doing at least some Grey Knights work.

GK Terminator with Nemesis Power Sword & Storm Bolter

Saturday happened to find me up around Southridge dropping my wife and mother-in-law off at David's Bridal for my wife to get fitted for a bridesmaid's dress for my brother-in-law's impending wedding. Oh hey, there's a GW store near there ain't there? ;) So I popped in and grabbed the most recent White Dwarf and a box of Grey Knight Terminators to keep me occupied while I wait for my full order.

Daemon Hammer Terminator, note the drilled gun barrels.

I love the new plastic kits, all sorts of cool stuff and weapons options going on in there. With this army I'm really trying to go all out when it comes to making something that will look nice on the table. Going hand and hand with my (attempted) commitment to get stuff painted and assembled as I get it. In this vein I had ordered some cool sculpted resin bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures, the intent is to base everything in the army on these. Of course this will cost a little more but just after putting the minis on them I'm already in love with them. Not only do they look awesome, like the Knights are assaulting some mountainous Chaos stronghold with runes glowing on the ground, they also add a small amount of weight to the miniature putting it somewhere between a plastic and pewter. They also helped with some of the posing I did.

Dynamically posed, with Nemesis Force Halbred poised to receive a charge.

Also went the extra bit of drilling out all the storm bolters double barrels with my pin vise. They look much better than just that flat plastic look. After some long debating I settled on the weapons loadout for this five man Terminator Troops squad.

• Justicar Thawn (halbred & storm bolter)
• Terminator (halbred & storm bolter)
• Terminator (sword & storm bolter)
• Terminator (sword & psycannon)
• Terminator (daemon hammer & storm bolter)

Psycannon mid-fire, with his weight back on his rear leg and bracing on the rock outcropping.

The swords improve the models invulnerable save by one to 4++ which will be helpful when I have to take nasty plasma or power weapons saves. The halbreds strike at Initiative 6, so a couple of those will hopefully knock off some attackers before they go. The Daemon Hammer works like a power fist, so it will be slower but give me a shot at high Toughness Daemon Princes and the like or vehicles. Also, for the heavy weapon I chose the Psycannon. I've loved this gun since I first saw it in the third edition codex. Its strength 7, ap 4 with rending and either Assault 2 or Heavy 4 depending on movement. With Terminators being Relentless and always counting as stationary for firing heavy weapons, its a no brainer!

Justicar Thawn. Still need to add some embellishments. Bloodletter head!

For the Justicar I opted to make the special upgrade character Justicar Thawn. There's no real model for him, but in essence he's a Grey Knight who somehow became immortal and just keeps coming back after dying. Represented tabletop, every turn after he dies he has a chance to be resurrected on the spot as his own separate unit. Sounds like a great harasser unit, that can hold objectives to boot. The fluff about him doesn't have a picture and the only distinctive mark he has is an imperial eagle on his forehead. Well, looking at the pair of unhelmeted heads on the sprue neither has enough room for me to attempt anything like that, and I'm not sure if my skill even could. So instead I'm going to double down on purity seals on him and gave him one of the blank tilt shields which I hope to put something resembling an imperial eagle on. And maybe try to write Thawn across the scroll on his backpack heraldry.