Deathwatch - Planning

Although I'd normally prefer to avoid counts-as armies, Codex: Ordo Xenos has been pushed back in the release schedule for ooooh well over two decades now. <evilempirekoolaid>But it'll definitely be a doozy when it does come out, oh yes.</evilempirekoolaid>

So anyway, the point was Codex: Grey Knights provides a pretty decent opportunity to do the heavily-Aliens influenced OX army I've had on the backburner for ever, more so than any previous codex I think. The plan is a Lance Henriksen lookalike Coteaz leading a couple of dropships...err, stormravens.. packing a bunch of death cultists (not unlike this one by Numbat) and Crusaders (not sure where to go with them yet), some razorbacks packing guys with pulse rifles, and a squad of true scaled Deathwatch. I'm a bit loose on whether they should be Purifiers or Interceptors but it seems to me that Purifiers would really need another stormraven to assault out of, wouldn't make great use of special equipment (a hallmark of the Deathwatch I feel), and aren't giving me something the death cultists aren't already. Shunt move and warp quake would add a ton of tactical power I think, and I can totally see the interceptor jump pack as a bit of co-opted xeno-tech. It's just kind of a shame that marines have such average stats - baseline 5/5/5/5/2/5/2/8 next time please GW.

Captain Andye of the Sword Bearers

I test ran a true-scale marine as one of the characters for BSGH (the fella on the right). This followed the terminator-with-assault-torso plan, no spacers - I find the doghouse pattern #1 way too limited in poses to make a unit out of, spacers just tend to make for skinny marines, and Synapse/Tsuro's excellent pattern is both a ton of work and doesn't work so well when limited to 25mm bases imho. So I took a middle path.

The waist/abdomen join was pretty awkward and I went with green-stuff and power cables which was a bit meh, but really the core problem was the shoulder pads - they're just HUGE. I think the problem was the rims, so for the Deathwatch with those more awkward shoulder pads I'm going to try and go for more of a smoothed off MkVI style. Handily I have the brown stuff to do it.

I'm conceiving the Deathwatch (or at least those who are part of my slightly Kryptmanite inqusitor) as being pretty high-tech for the Imperium, so I'm looking to go for less of a Baroque feel and more James Cameron war-porn. Parts list per marine:

• Marine Commander / Devastator Sgt. / Plague Marine Champion helmet
• Terminator legs
• Assault torso
• Interceptor jump pack
• Terminator shoulder pads (one Deathwatch obvs)
• Grey knight terminator arms (or thunder hammer arms for halberds)
• Grey Knight melee weapons
• Bolter, scope, storm bolter ammo feed
• Not sure yet about Psycannons, but I do know I prefer the look of the Psilencer

Hope to get a prototype up tomorrow.