Project log update. 11/7/11

Ok, so I finished off the Pioneer squad. I finished fixing the Sergeants for the three squads I have finished.

Right now we have the following finished.

Garrison Squad. 8 marines with varying weapons, either axes or chain swords plus bolt pistol. 2 guys with real meltaguns. 1 Sergeant with powerfist and bolt pistol. The Sergeant has the head that I have denoted into being the veteran helmet. These guys were pictured before on the blog.

Construction Squad. 8 marines with bolt pistol and hammer. 2 guys with meltaguns (1 real, 1 Duncan brand kitbash that I need to do a tutorial on). 1 Sergeant with powerfist and bolt pistol, as the above Sergeant he has the veteran helmet. No pictures yet, will get those up ASAP.

Pioneer Squad. 8 marines with axes and bolt pistols. 2 guys with meltaguns (1 real, 1 kitbash). 1 Sergeant with powerfist and bolt pistol. Again, veteran helmet, and still no pictures.

Now, I have gone through all my bits boxes, I scrounged, I scavenged, and I finagled my way into finding enough bolt pistols, kitbashed meltas, powerfist, heads, backpacks, and torso's to do up a total of 7 more marines. Sadly, doing this will use the last of the heads I have from Maxmini so I'm going to have to order more before I can continue building. Now, if I pull the heads from the two built devastators, I can bump the squad up to 9, including the Sergeant. Only one problem. No legs. Not a single set unless I crack open my last box of tactical marines to steal their legs, which I will probably do.

But I won't have any devastators built, except two without heads. Now, I've got a different weapon batch for this squad, the Chaos Warrior/Chaos Marauder swords to go with their bolt pistols. Which gives each squad built so far individual appearances. One with cloaks, one axes, one hammers, one swords. Sure the sword squad will only have 9 marines (if I pull the heads off the Devs), but I won't have any of the Devs built.

I also won't have any characters built in the style of the army at all, which I really need to do. Also, all the marines so far have the regular, shitty style shoulder pads which I hate. Also, the majority of pieces in each squad are imperial, with insignia shaved away. Sure they look heresy, and sure the backpacks, heads, and weapons look damned good, but that's about all.

What I really need to do is put together the Forge World stuff and magnetize them with the 10 spare backpacks I'll have left over after doing whatever it is that I end up doing with the Devs/Sword squad.

I guess I better lay out a plan for the next little bit.

#1. More heads and backpacks from Maxmini. Either I've got three fully completed squads and two Dev squads fully complete (I've got two spare of the Veteran helmets, but not enough missile launchers), or I have three fully completed squads and one nearly complete. I figure I'll bulk it out to 6 squads of 10, just in case I ever field them, say... in Ard Boyz or something. So, just on the assumption that I'm going with the Devs being complete... I need 27 heads for the three squads, minus the 10 for the Forge World guys, and 3 total of the veteran helmets. Which still leaves me without having completed a single character figure. I guess I better figure to finish off the third squad of Devs also. Even if I just bump the Devs up to 6 people in total (if I ever feel like playing as Space Wolves, or as a just in case for the rumored Chaos Legion codex next year) and don't go with a single body after these... I'm going to need...26 heads. Truthfully... I may as well grab 40 heads of the regular heads, so I can build more special weapons as needed (I have plenty of Plasma Guns laying about), also that way I can bump the Devs up with a few spare bodies. Vet heads however, I only need 4 of. Better push that to 20 of those heads, so I can do a swap in when I start making characters and so I can make more Termies. Though I may want to get different heads on them just for differentiation. Backpacks... crap on a stick. I need nearly 50 more.

#2. Legs. Better buy more. Ditto with some meltaguns, the kitbash works, but I prefer real meltaguns.

#3. Hand weapons/bolt pistols. Yep, gonna needs some of those. Just for the one final squad, that's 10 bolt pistols, and 10 of some kind of weapon. Maybe I'll go with chainswords for those guys, I dunno yet. Must ponder.

#4. More missile launchers. I may have enough to finish the one squad of Devs if I go that route. But that still leaves me either 8 or 10 short. Better get that corrected.

#5. Shoulder pads. Ugh, I really hope that Maxmini gets those new pads released soon, I wanna buy them and cut the shitty pads I have now off my guys. At a ballpark if I only go with one shoulder per guy, that's still nearly 100 pads, and if I go with two pads per guy, as I want to... that's probably 200 pads. Lemme see here... 50 guys in the troops section, 15 in the Devs, misc in the characters/spares... call it ballpark 150 in reality. So, just on the safe side... 160-170.

#6. Vehicles/Dreads. Contemptor pattern dreads are fairly obvious. The Rhino's I can go with the ones I have and just add bling, or I could go all nuts and order Forge World Doors. I also should grab a Land Raider or two for my guys.

All that on top of painting. Fucks sake, this is going to be expensive as shit. But, I knew that when I started this project, and for the first time in a long while, I am going to follow it through when it comes to building this army in the way that I want to.

After all that... painting. Which I truly hate to do. I'm going to need more paint and shit.

Thank god for the new house I'm getting, at least I'll have a dedicated hobby room/man cave to build this stuff in.

For now... sleep.

Iron Within, Iron Without.