Hobby Update – Space Marines

+ + + + + Urgent comms burst Inquisitor Marleck + + + +

Inquisitor, the listening post based in the gedron cluster picked up this scrambled message. Despite running Terran protocols the data serfs were unable to reconstruct the full message. Heavy interference and jamming occurred from the originating location.

Inquis%#+^^ Marleck. It is as we suspected $€}%*+^#] I have seen it with my own eyes. The &^}%*€€* a contemptor, ancient, Shadow Sentinel @*^^**+$€<. ALPHA LEGI**+}€#€#. Lucius Grit£&@*^%**

+ + + + + Message Terminated + + + + +

The last few months have seen me make my first Forge World purchases. The first was an impulse buy to pick up the last chance purchase of the Mann’s Blades command group. I mainly got these as I thought the musician model was really unusual. With only limited Empire models (and no inclination to start that army) they are going to be remaining in the blister for the present, though I have thoughts of Mann having fallen on hard times and being reduce to leading my halfling contingent (just need to strip the 30 odd old hammer halflings painted my sister in the late 80’s!).

My second foray into its products was more of a planned purchase. Just two items (because frankly I couldn’t justify buying anything more at their prices). The first was Leitpold the Black. A gorgeous mounted Empire general model (if you haven’t seen it: https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Lietpold-the-Black). I’m planning on using him as my general in my slow build Bretonnian Army.

The second was a Contemptor Dreadnought. If you know me, you will be well aware of my love of Dreadnoughts. Even in the previous edition of 40k I used them a lot (probably why I was trounced so much). Thankfully they are much improved this time round. “But why did you buy a forge world model when GW already produce a cheaper plastic version”, I don’t hear you ask?

Good question. Firstly, I buy dreadnoughts for their aesthetic appearance and the standard GW one is a very horrible static rigid pose. Not something that normally bothers me too much but I just don’t like the standard model. Secondly, forge world sell a number of chapter specific dread’s and some of them look stunning (two of which had really caught my eye, the first of which was the Raven Guard one). Thirdly I had an idea for my Shadow Sentinels Chapter fluff and the other Dreadnought ticked all the boxes.

So enough rambling. I present the hidden secret, the only visible link to the chapter’s gene sires. The most Ancient and Venerable Contemptor Dreadnought: The Twin is Cleft.

Yep it’s an Alpha Legion Dread. Having my own space marine chapter was always a no brainer. With that decided, I had to come up with a back story and having an unimaginative, unknown founding (mainly so I could try out different chapter tactics) was nothing new. Reading the Horus Heresy series, some of the stories that really captured my imagination were the those where members of the traitor legions found themselves defending the imperium, sometimes against their own legion brothers. The Alpha Legion in particular originally only defected in order to hasten the eventual defeat of Chaos. Would it not then be plausible that some of them would remain on the Loyalist side fighting incognito (as their legion was known to do)? Who knows, 40k lore is not my strong point but it’s my chapter and it’s what I’m going with.

In terms of the model, in the main it was easy to put together, even lacking any instructions. The one fiddly bit was the assault cannon. That was a total bitch to fit together. Seriously, why would you cast it in 6 parts just for the rotary section and connectors. If I had to do another, I’d seriously consider trying to pick up the plastic GW kit and using the cannon from that (assuming it comes in a single piece that is).