the space sharks space marines

7/28/2019 The Space Sharks Space Marines

1/9

The Space Sharks Space Marines

Welcome to the first of what will hopefully be many Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 army articles on the Target-

Gaming.com blog! This is will be a regular series about the armies collected, modelled and painted by our gaming

group. Hopefully theyll inspire you to create your own imaginative armies, with their own backgrounds and inventive

conversions.

The first article in the series is about one of my own armies The mighty Space Sharks Space Marines. Who, I hear

you cry? Well, many years ago, back in 1988, when the 40K background was less fixed than today, White Dwarf ran

a sh ort article by Rick Priestly entitled The Badab War. This described a conflict between several chapters of Space

Marines, some rebelling against the Imperium, some loyal. The part of this article fondly remembered by most

gamers of a certain age was the colour spread and bear in mind that most of White Dwarf was printed in black and

white in those days. This featured colour schemes for all the chapters involved in the Fourth Quadrant Rebellion (as

the Badab War was also known) in total around fifteen chapters, complete with alternative schemes for special unitslike the Red Scorpions Pursuit Squad. It would probably look crude to younger gamers today, but was filled with

imagination and ideas, and inspired many a Space Marine army to be built from the original plastic boxed set, the

RTB01 Space Marines. Fast forward to 2004 and Warhammer World in Nottingham was starting to run a series of

campaign weekends each year. These were fun gaming weekends deliberately designed to be less competitive than

the Grand Tournaments with a different atmosphere. In a stroke of genius, the first 40K campaign run that year was
http://blog.target-gaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Space-Shark-Army.jpg


2/9

to be a re-run of the Badab Campaign, with special rules and scenarios written, complete with a lovely A3 reprint of

all the colour schemes featured in the old White dwarf article. It was to be gamed at 1500 points, but the brilliant

feature was that if you took an army painted in one of the old chapter colours, you were allowed to use for free!

one of the unique units featured in the rules pack. Most of these units were based around the units featured in the

colour spread. Thus, if you painted and brought 1500 points of Red Scorpions, you were allowed to add for free the

Red Scorpion Pursuit Squad. Needless to say, the tickets for this weekend sold out almost instantly. What no-one

(not, I suspect, even the organisers) expected was the take up of the special armies. Remember, none of the armies

featured were any of the big chapters for example, no Space Wolves or Ultramarines were able to get the special

rules. The most well known chapter featured was the Salamanders. As it turned out, dozens of entrants had bought

and painted entirely new Space Marine armies, partly to be able to use the unique units, but mainly, I think, to get into

the spirit of the campaign. It certainly added to the experience of the weekend, seeing Astral Claws Space Marines

up against the Star Phantoms and Rainbow Warriors battling the Mantis Warriors. Around half the 100 or so gamers

had made the effort to buy and paint a new army for a campaign weekend. I was one of them.

Now as anyone that knows me will tell you, I love Space Marines and dont need much of an excuse to start a new

Space Marine army. But the opportunity to paint and game with a cool old-school chapter from a great old bit of

background I couldnt pass that up. With rules pack in hand I chose the Space Sharks partly because they have a

cool name, partly because they had a cool unique unit a team of move and fire heavy bolters. They also add a

really nice chapter badge (they actually have had two over the years I chose what I consider the better of the two)

which turned out to be a lot easier to paint than it looks. The final reason was that with the campaign four months

away and a 1500+ point army to paint, the scheme needed to be quick (Well, that certainly ruled out the Minotaurs!).

Two things were chief in my mind the army needed have and old-school 40K feel, despite using the then-current

range of models, and that I wanted it to be fairly realistic well as realistic as a 40K army ever gets. I wanted to as

get as close to the look of the article as I could. To do this I resolved to use only Mk VI Space Marine heads (hey

kids, in the past there was no Mk VII armour!) on my models. After rummaging through my bits box, I had around

twenty heads (I have a BIG bits box) a lot, but still not enough. Fortunately, my gaming group rallied round and

searched through their boxes and I soon had enough parts thanks guys!

Once Id assembled some marin es, the next stage was to paint them. The paint scheme was designed to be close to

the original and quick, consisting of the following:

The power armour was painted with a Codex Grey Base Coat over a black undercoat.

The armour was then lined with a 50/50 Codex Grey / Chaos Black shade in the recesses. This was pre-mixed to

speed things up and also used as the Chaos black highlight below.

The armour was then given a single highlight of Fortress Grey.


3/9

Guns, armour seals and other worky bits were painted bl ack and highlighted with the above 50/50 grey/black mix

and then a neat codex grey, with trim painted Boltgun Metal and washed with thinned down Black Ink.

Red trim was painted with Scab red and a Blood Red highlight in particular a red vertical stripe down the centre of

the helmet, in the same style as the article.

Bone / scroll work was painted in three layers Graveyard Earth, Kommando Khaki and Bleached Bone.

The helmet eyes were painted with regal blue, with Ultramarine Blue highlight and Skull White reflection dot.

Finally the models were based with a drybrush of Graveyard Earth, Kommando Khaki and Bleached Bone with

static grass applied. Id sanded the models prior to undercoating to speed thing up again. A bit of planning ahead

can greatly speed things up!

In another nod to the old Rogue Trader artwork (The first edition of Warhammer 40,000 was called Rogue Trader

but then you knew that already didnt you), I painted some daft slogans on the Marines power armour see the

photos below for details.

With the colour scheme nailed down, the army was soon together some of the highlights are featured below.

Chaplain with Jump Pack Leading Assault Squad

Although the campaign weekend was aimed at being fun rather than no-holds-barred competitive, I still wanted some

decent units in the army. Back in fourth edition 40K, the Space Marine Chaplain with the Jump Pack was one of the

best HQ units going especially when leading a fully equipped Assault Squad. To make this unit a bit more special, I

modelled them on scenic bases using the 40K ruins sprue. This was to give the impression of their bounding along

using their jump packs and also to raise them up, giving them the prominence they deserved. I also used the Chaos

Raptor jump packs as I felt their more streamlined look fitted the pointed Mk VI helmets. These had the rivets, arrows

and stars filed off to give them a less Chaotic look. The flamer operators were given Cadian Imperial Guard flamers

with the fuel tanks mounted on the Marines sides. This was to give them a more heavy duty, military look. The

Sergeant was given the Power Fist from the plastic Space Marine Commander sprue and the servo skull was added

for variety. It also provided a bit of a counter weight, as he was quiet unstable. Originally, the models were mounted

on standard 25mm round bases, but these were later uprated to 40mm round bases due to the stability issues cause

by metal jump packs on tall plastic models.


4/9

Tactical and Devastator Space Marines The Tactical Marines were originally constructed as several smaller squads, as was common in the previous edition

of 40K. Theyve since been modified and had the relevant markings added to ma ke them the 10-man squads

required today. Many feature slogans and graffiti on them. The Veteran Sergeants come from a previous Space

Marine Veteran boxed set. The Veterans were a later addition to the army for a later tournament. Theyre the only unit

not to feature exclusively the Mk VI helmet, as theyre metal models. Sadly, the squad is no longer fully legal due to

the introduction of Vanguard and Sternguard veteran squads. In the original army, they had the specialist

skill infiltrate. This was represented on the model by the camouflage pattern on their tabards. This was painted in a

NATO standard woodland colour scheme that the NATO troops based in Germany used during the Cold War, and Ithink looks great on model soldiers. It was painted with a Catachan green base coat with curved blobs of Chaos

Black, Graveyard Earth and Desert Yellow painted in layers up. Ive since used it to good effect on a couple of

Imperial Guard infantry models, but it would take a while for a whole army
http://blog.target-gaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Tactical-Squad-1.jpghttp://blog.target-gaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Assault-Squad.jpghttp://blog.target-gaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Tactical-Squad-1.jpghttp://blog.target-gaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Assault-Squad.jpg


5/9

The Devastators likewise are made from the remnants of the old smaller tactical squads and a Veteran as the

Sergeant.

Predator Destructors

In Warhammer 40,000, some of the best (and most fun!) units have been those with large amounts mobile

firepower. In the Space Marine army of the time, the best of these were Dreadnoughts, Land Speeders and

Predators so I took some of all of them. The Predators, especially when kitted with the Autocannon of the

Destructor version look great and really look like they mean business. However, I had one main problem with the kit

the sponson mounted weapons. Now in real life, most countries stopped using sponsons in their tank designs in the

1920s. Theyre mounted too low down to be as useful as a turret weapon and they dont have the 360 f ield of fire

either. They also add weaknesses to the side armour and add complication in operating through the track units on the

sides. For these reasons, I moved all the guns to the turret. One Heavy Bolter became a co-axial weapon next to the

Autocannon and the other was moved to a pintle mount on the turret hatch (Unfortunately Im forced to count them

both as sponson weapons regardless apparently mounting all your guns on a turret with a 360 turret traverse is

cheating. You hear that 1920s tank designers? Youre CHEATING). I also added some extra armour to the sides,

made from layers of 0.060 and 0.040 thick plasticard, cut to match the silhouette of the Rhino hull, along with the

Imperial Guard dozer blade for extra mobility. The whole tank was then covered in stowage, some from 40K kits, but

most from Tamiyas excellent Modern US Army Equipment set. This gave me loads of jerry cans, bed rolls, junk and

also the modern Friend or Foe panels designed to lessen friendly fire incidents. These I stuck on each side of the

extra armour of the Predator. To one of the tanks I also attached a crewman to the turret hatch. As a finishing touch, I

added some mud to the tank. Ive seen PVA glue mixed with basing sand applied in a similar manner before, but it s

just not the right scale it looks like rocks have been glued on. I used a mix of PVA, flour and a small amount of fine

sand (okay, some small rocks were stuck to it!). This gave a much more real appearance I felt, but the only problem

was that the fl our/water/glue mix shrunk after drying, leaving some vacancies. I still havent really sorted this problem

out, unfortunately. The Predators were painted in the same way as the infantry, complete with names, and some
http://blog.target-gaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Devestators.jpg


6/9

aircraft-style shark faces on the nose of the tanks. Hate and Obey refer to a couple of quotes from the old rulebook

The Emperor asks only that you HATE and The Emperor asks only that you OBEY, which led to a certain amount

of theological discussion. If the Emperor asks only that you h ate, you cant be doing any obeying, as youre doing

something other than hating and vice versa

Land Speeder Tornado

Land Speeder Tornadoes were almost compulsory Space Marine armies in 4 th edition 40K. Fortunately the skimmer

and Assault Cannon rules have been toned down now slightly, but theyre still worthwhile. To make these guys look a

bit more heroic, I replaced the regular sitting gunner with a Heavy Bolter Devestator, to have him standing whilst

firing. Gung ho!
http://blog.target-gaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Predator-Obey-01.jpg


7/9

Dreadnoughts

The Dreadnoughts went in as, a) theyre cool and, b) theyre a quick way of getting painted points into an army. Two

of them became tank hunting Venerable Dreadnoughts, the last a regular Dreadnought with a Power Fist. They

usually get deployed as a unit DREADNOUGHT SQUAD! to be shouted in the same voice as ROBOT HOUSE!

They were given the same mud effect as the Predator and modelled to look as though they were wading through it,

with a foot submerged in it (This was at least partly because some of my Dreadnought kits were missing their feet).

Again, they had plasticard extra armour added. The venerable Dreadnought ability to re-roll the damage results ishugely frustrating for your opponent. Often it means hell essentially do nothing to the Dreadnought. On other times,

after hes wrecked it in close combat, the re -roll will come up with an explosion! Immediately killing all those

Orks/Tyranids/Eldar that just took it out. Hit that self destruct button!
http://blog.target-gaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Landspeeder.jpg


8/9

Heavy Bolter Squad

The Heavy Bolter squad was the unique special unit that Space Shark players received for free during the campaign.

They were basically a five man space marine combat squad equipped with two Heavy Bolters and the addition of

the Slow and Purposeful rule, allowing them to move and fire in the same turn, albeit with their movement confined to

as though they were moving through difficult terrain. Seemed like a decent unit to me! But there had to be something

special about the Heavy Bolter gunners if they could move and fire. So, in keeping with the military theme of the

tanks, I modelled them as a pair of robots with their controllers, where the robots counted as the two Marine Heavy

Bolter gunners. The models were made from Epic Leman Russ hulls for the track units, with plasticard side armour,

with sprue for larger exhausts. The guns were Steel Legion Heavy Bolters with Land Raider lascannon mounts,

trimmed, for the mounts. A gun sight was added to the top and ammo boxes were added to the guns to complete

them. The controllers were given plasticard laptops with clear plastic (from blister pack fronts) screens. Finally, someCadian Vox Caster units were trimmed and added to the Space Marine back packs to show the radio control devices

they use. They were all painted in the same way as the rest of the army, with the guns name Huey and Dewey (ten

points if you can name the film reference).
http://blog.target-gaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Dreadnought-Squad.jpg


9/9

the space sharks space marines

Documents