Category Archives: Space Marines

Steel Guard Razorback ‘Peace Is Tyranny’

16 Tuesday Sep 2025

Posted by in Space Marines

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With this wee fella another landmark is complete – I have worked my way through a pile of broken old vehicles, repairing, restoring, and returning them to life. I have no idea if Razorbacks are legal in 10th edition – the last time I played a game was 8th ffs (if you’re in South Wales and want to play a game of 40k, any edition, and don’t mind that I am a complete novice and that we have to take some infection control precautions, I would be up for a game, drop me a message). But in 8th Razorbacks were a thing, even if no-one ever played them. One opponent was so amazed by my antique models he called all his friends over to examine these weird things! He tabled me in 3 moves with his Dark Angels and was terribly embarrassed about it, but really it was an experience and style of playing mismatch. I had very little, and he was a tournament player. No shade to the guy, as long as he’s enjoying himself, there are no wrong ways to play as long as you’re not cheating or being a shitty opponent. I think I enjoyed the game more than he did though, it was no challenge for him to table me and he wouldn’t have learned anything along the way. I learned a lot and had fun and saw some cool models and got to show off my minis from a time when the grim far future seemed so very far away.

Oh yeah, so this Razorback has been converted a bit. It started life as a Looted Rhino, rebuilt and orkified. I prised off the most orky bits, but kept the basic frame as the previous owner had left it. I thought it looked quite good and different, whilst still being acceptably Imperiumy. The Razorback turret was all in one piece in my bitz box, fit into the hole in the roof, and looked alright. A bit of filling and plasticard, a couple of bits of copper wire, and pow! All that was left was to paint it. This one is painted as a first company support vehicle. I named it ‘Peace Is Tyranny’ because I have been thinking about Megatron a lot today! Enjoy!

Honoured Brother Tabascus, Ultramarines Legion Dreadnought

30 Saturday Aug 2025

Posted by in Age of Darkness, Finished Work, Space Marines

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We return today to the Age of Darkness, and my first batting on the other half of the (previous now) Age of Darkness boxset. The new one has now been released, and I am forbidding myself from buying it until I have completed the last one. Well, I’ve done the Sons of Horus and now I am doing the Ultramarines. But Doris, I hear you cry, the boxset was Sons vs Imperial Fists, why are you doing Ultramarines. Well, there is a slightly boring story there that I will tell you because that’s the sort of guy I am. The first Horus Heresy boxset was Betrayal At Calth many years ago. I bought it, but lacking interest in Ultramarines vs Word Bearers I painted them as Imperial Fists vs Death Guard. This time the Fists are getting a proper go, but I have some 30k Fists already, why not do something new? So I am, and as Fists got to be Ultramarines last time round, Ultramarines get to be Fists this time.

We start with a Dreadnought. I had fun building this guy, I wanted to see how much motion and action I could get in. Admittedly its not very Ultramarine, but this is one angry dread, he’s a pretty spicy guy as his honour-name suggests. So he has a tendency not to act as a mobile artillery piece but get in close and stompy. I don’t know what the chap on the base did to get stomped so hard, perhaps he is a cultist of some sort. Tabascus has been built so that most combos of weapons are possible, which is good, as too often I glue stuff in place and then wish I hadn’t!

The rest of Tabascus’ force will show up eventually, I am sure!

Descend into the Age of Darkness with the Sons of Horus

15 Saturday Feb 2025

Posted by in Age of Darkness, Finished Work, horus heresy, Space Marines

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The other year I realised that I had a build up of GW vouchers and so I jumped on Age of Darkness when it was released. This is a good example of Getting Over Excited Because Other People Are and Not Reading The Instructions Properly. Not that its a bad set or owt, this is a great set. The minis are fantastic and for GW it’s a decent price (interjection: have you seen Rogue Hobbies’ video on Gundam? I am not a GW hater but goddam when the relative prices of plastic sprues are compared it makes me piss blood. I cheered myself up by reminding me that I recommended that my father-in-law buy GW shares, and he is well pleased with the return and regularly praises my stock tipping skills so what comes around goes around and all that). No, not that at all, but because I don’t especially collect Horus Heresy minis and already have a massive pile of shame dreams. In point of fact, I actually thought that a) this was a game in itself, like Betrayal At Calth; and b) that this would be a limited edition boxset like Betrayal etc. Whoops!

When I did Betrayal At Calth I decided, foolishly in hindsight, to paint the marines as Imperial Fists vs Death Guard. This was because Imperial Fists are great and Ultramarines are dull, and Death Guard are super interesting and never get any love. Since then of course Death Guard have become their own Thing and I have loads of them and they’re a bit boring (in an entertainingly squishy sort of way). It was clear that Sons of Horus vs Imperial Fists was fun, but I’ve already painted a load of 30K Fists, did I want to do more? Well, I will worry about that later, I’ve never painted any Sons of Horus and considering I’ve got some Lupercal Green and Sons Of Horus Green sitting here crying out for use, let’s start there.

What can I say about these? I really enjoyed painting them and I think they came out well. I am very pleased with the Spartan because tanks are so hard to paint well if you’re a hamfisted spanner like me. The marines look good. I think I should have added some battle damage and dust to the marines, but its not a problem really. I am also pleased with the freehand Sons logos. All in all, a success.

Space Marine Motorised Attack Team

10 Tuesday Dec 2024

Posted by in Finished Work, Space Marines

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Another batch of Space Marines finished. These are mostly newhammer with some older bikers from the Dark Millenium (or was it the Dark Imperium? fucked if I can remember) boxset and some really battered Land Speeders from my junk pile. A solid slab of grey and red moving swiftly and angrily towards aliens and heretics! The hardest part of this lot was working out the points values at 10th edition! I had to fudge it, there is no way of doing it! You might notice a lot of Dark Angel kibble on these guys.. well this is the fluff for it. Steel Guard aspirants are trained according to the perceived disciplines of all the (loyalist) primarchs. Within the chapter each of the primarchs are honoured in the formal name of one of the companies (the first company is The Emperor’s Company, whilst the second company are The Lion’s Company. Whilst all Steel Guard are expected to be equally proficient in all aspects of battle, some are more attracted to certain styles of battle or philosophies. They are able to express this through trinkets, gewgaws, and honour marks that are associated with those primarchs or their legion. Thus Ancient Ypsima who leads this group is clearly a devotee of Lion’el Johnson (they so should have retconned that name at some point) and has probably picked for the job a few others who feel similar.

I’m pleased with these. Should have used a different green for the company colours, should have used a different colour for the bases as grey on different-grey doesn’t work. I experimented with a different way of painted the red flashes on the backpack, which works for the newmarines but not the old ones. I have decided that any future newmarines will have the new style of red but the oldmarines will stay the same. Steel Guard are flexible enough to be able to handle different paint jobs on different styles of armour… this might alarm the inquisition, who have already had to deal with this chapter’s flexibility when ***REDACTED***PLEASE REPORT TO THE NEAREST INQUISITOR FOR RE-EDUCATION***

Combat Patrol Sprung!

23 Sunday Jun 2024

Posted by in Finished Work, Space Marines

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Up next we have a small force of Astartes, a combat patrol to use the current parlace, led by a Librarian, Brother Cheres Sprung. Brother Sprung is in disguise, wearing phobos armour and a cameoline cape, so he isn’t using the blue armour more normally associated with the librarius. Either that or some foolish chapter serf got confused during armour maintenance rites. Ahem…

So I pulled the tank out of my leadpile and decided to build a small force around it. I needed a leader, and at least one squad. Grabbing at random from appropriate piles gave me a librarian and a suppressor marine. This is all looking very newhammery so far. The patrol needed to be a bit bigger, so I selected a couple of minis at random from Space Marine Box A and Space Marine Box B, which gave me another squad and an apothecary.

Brother Sprung is ably assisted by Brother Ploug of the apothecarium. Clearly this is a mission where they are likely to need a field medic. The Repulsor (ably piloted by techmarine Brother Janni) is a bit big for just the two of them so a tactical squad is just the thing. Led by Sergeant Rucker, this tactical squad is about as oldschool as it gets. With a lascannon for tanks and a flamer for troops this lot are determined not to be overshadowed by their bigger brothers! Finally to support the Repulsor some suppressors. I am not sure about the physics of these guys, but flying men with giant autocannons is definitely pretty cool.

III Company IV Infernus Squad, Steel Guard – Squad Gallardus

14 Tuesday Nov 2023

Posted by in Finished Work, Leviathan, Space Marines

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I bought the Leviathan box set when it came out under the impression that it had a rulebook in. Normally I wouldn’t buy a set unless I collect (or want) both armies, but I must have been feeling weak and pliable over summer, perhaps the tottering piles of plastic and lead weren’t feeling overwhelming so I jumped onto a new project, as you do. Anyway its here now so lets do whats in front of us and pretend I dont already have hundreds of pounds of unpainted models sitting waiting to be painted… sorry Mortarian, sorry Ork Stompa, sorry Horus Heresy, sorry Nurgle and Chaos Space Marine Battleboxes etc etc.

This little squad inches my Steel Guard collection closer towards the 10,000 point marker. The pyreblasters are beautiful looking weapons, chunky and utilitarian. I have to admit that I like the ‘Primaris’ Marines. There’s just the right amount of detail, but the nice clean lines that you associated with Space Marines. I tried to make more of an effort than usual on the Sergeant’s face, because we’re always being told to emphasise the faces as that’s what people look at. I don’t think that it comes out in the pictures. Its all practice!

Brother Librarian Oconee Tempz conversion

05 Tuesday Sep 2023

Posted by in Finished Work, Space Marines

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Another one I recently finished, this is converted from a Stormguard Celestant-Prime. I don’t know what that does but I liked the mini and so when it was cheap on partwork I picked it up. A Librarian seemed like the obvious choice, though having just designated a Chief Librarian to the Steel Guard this chap is just a common or garden Space Marine psyker and doesn’t get a special hat with a button on even though his pose is way more epic. I ditched the swirly magic base and the pointy wings, replacing the wings with a standard marine backpack to emphasise that it was psychic flying. The arms took some work and this was the first time I had used model filler so its a bit of a mess under his armpits! I used lots of shade and contrast-as-glaze and I’m not really that impressed with my work but its all practise, next time will be a bit better.

Meanwhile I’ve recently started playing Skyrim (I know, but I just never got round to it before) and its a bit good isnt it? I’m a bit shit at computer games so I bought the game guide and its nearly 900 pages long! Repeat to myself: I must not sit up til 3am playing every night… I must not….

Veteran Squad Moleab

25 Wednesday Jan 2023

Posted by in Finished Work, Space Marines

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I’m still alive, as busy or busier than ever but still getting to slowly grind out some finished miniatures. Here we have a Sternguard Veteran Squad, intended as a part of Chapter Master Melmoth’s honour guard. I used Contrast paints mostly, and the grey is much lighter. I think next time I am going to use the normal Mechanicus Standard Grey and use the Contrast paints to shade it. This is the Armour Through The Ages resin reprint of old lead miniatures and has recently been on Made To Order. This surprised me because I hadn’t realised it had been taken off sale in the first place. Its a bit sad when things you’ve bought have been removed from sale and them brough back again as classic one offs! Nice to get it painted finally. I really wanted to paint the Thunder Warrior, a mini I had when I was a lad. Its a proper 80s mini that should really have been painted in neon colours! I hope you are all staying Covid safe still. Its not over, and it might cause your immune system to go crazy and disable you, even if you’ve been vaccinated.

Battle-damaged Steel Guard rhino

02 Tuesday Nov 2021

Posted by in Finished Work, Space Marines

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I got this rhino years ago in a joblot of battered vehicles and unfinished conversions that caught my eye. It was covered in mud-effects and patchily painted. I scrubbed off the mud effects, stripped the paint off it, added a space marine sticking his head out and a generic cannon that could be a counts-as for a storm bolter or even a predator cannon if I wanted. I then used a thinner mud effect to give it a bit of verisimilitude. I am quite pleased with this, it looks battle damaged but functioning, very Steel Guard-esque (Imperial Fists descendents with a touch of the Death Guard infantry slogger mentality).